Chloe Kelly almost didn't take crucial England penalty in dramatic Lionesses win over Italy
England defender Alex Greenwood admitted it was between her and Chloe Kelly when the time came to decide who would take the Lionesses' last-gasp penalty against Italy on Tuesday. Georgia Stanway scored England's only other Euro 2025 penalty outside of the shoot-out victory over Sweden, but wasn't on the pitch when referee Ivana Martincic pointed to the spot.
Ultimately, Kelly got the nod in the end, and was on hand to convert at the second time of asking after Laura Giuliani saved her initial effort. The goal came with barely a minute left of extra-time, leaving Italy with no chance to reply.
"All of our penalty takers were off. So who was left was probably me or Chloe," Greenwood said."I missed the pen in the game [against Sweden], in the shoot-out, Chloe scored hers comfortably, so they said, it's up to you, you or Chloe.
"I asked her, I looked at her and said, what do you think? She said, I'm confident. That's enough for me. I don't need to ask her again. She's confident enough to take it, so she did."
Greenwood played with Kelly at Manchester City before the forward's Arsenal switch, and described her former club team-mate as "brilliant". "I mean, she came on, she caused them massive problems, she did the other day," the defender added. "The way she carries herself off the pitch, I've not got enough good words to say about her."
For a second game in a row, England looked down and out. Barbara Bonansea put Italy in front before half-time and it remained 1-0 when the board went up to show seven added minutes at the end of the 90.
Italy didn't count on England's resilience, though. After coming off the bench to equalise in the quarter-final, teenage sensation Michelle Agyemang came up clutch once again to send the game into extra-time - and almost scored the winner herself with an effort which came back off the crossbar before the late penalty drama.
England are into a third straight major tournament final, having won the Euros in 2022 and come up short against Spain in the World Cup final in 2023, but Greenwood feels this run is different. "I can't compare the tournaments, to be honest. I've just literally said in there, I said to Aggie [Beever-Jones], 'this is your first tournament and this is my sixth'," she said.
"You can't compare any of them. Right now, I can't even think about '22, '23. I just can only process this one. It's going to take me a while to process this one, but right now, I think the focus is probably... go get ready for Sunday."
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Times
an hour ago
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In 2014 the FA introduced a set of principles that aimed to define the core characteristics of the England teams and profile the future players who would people them, calling it the 'England DNA'. The decade since then has brought the emergence of a new, technically adept cohort of male and female players. More importantly, both the England men's and women's teams have taken a significant step forward in terms of tournament performance, reaching four finals between them — with a fifth to come on Sunday — of which one was unforgettably won by the Lionesses at Wembley in 2022. These are times that England fans feel grateful to be living through. If you were going to be ultra-critical, though, you'd focus on precisely that idea of England DNA: that shared double-thread which intertwines men's and women's teams and tells us everything we need to know about what an England team looks like, how they play, what their idea of football is. 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