I rarely write about football, but at the moment the women’s european championship, being defended by England, is in progress in Switzerland. Last night saw a quarter-final match between England and Sweden. This post looks back at what happened.
BEHIND, BEHIND, AHEAD
Sweden took a 2-0 lead fairly early on in proceedings, and held that lead for a decent span of time. However, England clawed their way back to equality. It was 2-2 at the end of 90 minutes. It was still 2-2 after 30 minutes of extra time. Thus it went to a penalty shoot out. Sweden had marginally the better of the early stages of this, and when their fifth penalty taker stepped up she knew that if she was successful Sweden would be through. She failed to score, which took the teams into a sudden death situation. Another miss by England, and Sweden had a second opportunity to close it out, and again they failed to take it, meaning that there would be at least two further spot kicks. England’s seventh penalty taker was veteran right back Lucy Bronze, who had scored one of their two goals in open play. She kept her head and suddenly after having seen two attempts at victory fail Sweden’s seventh penalty taker had to score to keep her side in the tournament. She sent her shot over the bar and England were through. It was rough luck for Sweden, who have made a habit of reaching quarter-finals and then not managing to go any further in that the moment that the Swedish kicker missed that final penalty was just about the only time of the entire evening that England were in front, and they had been behind for long periods. For England and their coach Sarina Wiegman it keeps the possibly of retaining the trophy (and for Wiegman, who coached her native Netherlands to success two tournaments ago a third straight success at the European Championship). Ultimately however it came down to a battle of nerves and the only non-goalie to keep a cool head in the closing stages of that shootout was Bronze.
PHOTOGRAPHS (AND VIDEO)
Before the photographs, here is the longest video I have ever filmed (just under two minutes, and it shows the train on the Lynnsport Railway being given a test run with no passengers aboard):
My usual sign off…
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