Some 56 years ago, when England last won a major international tournament, they thought it was all over. This time, you sense it is just the beginning.
How else to characterise the scale of this achievement by these women who now call themselves the champions of Europe? How else to contextualise the magnitude of Chloe Kelly’s winner, stabbed in with the tenacity that she, her teammates and their predecessors have had to show to earn the recognition they can now revel in?
Kelly’s 110th-minute strike not only won this Women’s European Championship and not only delivered the Lionesses the first tournament success of their history. The belief is that it will do far more than that, building on the rapid growth that a sport that was once illegal has witnessed in recent years, capitalising on the sheer joy of this summer to inspire wider change. Granted, win or lose, Sarina Wiegman and her players had perhaps already achieved that. But now they have a trophy to hang it all on to.
