Chloe Kelly ‘had no doubt in her mind' about taking penalty

Independent

6 days ago

Chloe Kelly needed no persuasion to take the pressure-cooker extra-time penalty that sent defending champions England into the Euro 2025 final, according to defender Alex Greenwood.
The Lionesses were on the brink of elimination by Italy when 19-year-old substitute Michelle Agyemang forced extra time, drawing the sides level with an equaliser in the sixth minute of stoppage time to cancel out Barbara Bonansea's 33rd-minute opener.
Then, with another shootout minutes away, Beth Mead was brought down and Kelly stepped up to the spot, where she was initially denied by Laura Giuliani, but buried the rebound to complete England's second successive stunning comeback.
'That takes a lot of courage to step up to take that,' Greenwood said. 'I asked her, she had no doubt in her mind, she was confident enough to take it.
'All of our penalty takers were off, so who was left was probably me or Chloe. I missed the pen in the (Sweden) game, in the shootout, Chloe scored hers comfortably, so they (manager Sarina Wiegman and assistant Arjan Veurink) 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.
'She's great. She's brilliant. I mean, she came on, she caused them massive problems, she did the other day. She scores a penalty. The way she carries herself off the pitch, I've not got enough good words to say about her.'
Kelly's mere presence at this tournament looked anything but a certainty seven months ago.
In January, the 27-year-old was so unhappy with her situation at Manchester City that she took to social media, candidly expressing her desire to leave a situation she said, at the time, had 'huge impact on not only my career but my mental wellbeing'.
Kelly secured a deadline-day loan move back to former club Arsenal, and after a highly successful spell – including a Champions League trophy – was rewarded with a permanent contract after she became a free agent at the end of the season.
Having risen to prominence as the substitute whose extra-time winner at Wembley sealed the Lionesses' first major trophy at Euro 2022, Kelly has once again been a marvel in Switzerland, proving she is a woman who can always be relied upon under maximum pressure.
It was Kelly's crosses in their Sweden quarter-final comeback that allowed Lucy Bronze, then Agyemang, to draw the sides level in the final 11 minutes of normal time, and her calm, collected and clinical spot-kick was an anomaly in the chaotic shootout that ultimately booked their meeting with Italy.
But even as late as February, she was initially left out of Wiegman's Nations League squad, when the England boss explained 'she hasn't played enough', though she was later drafted in when Mead withdrew with an injury.
Asked after Tuesday's victory where her confidence comes from, Kelly smiled and replied: 'Myself. The moments when, in January, I felt like giving up football makes you so grateful for these moments here today, and makes you enjoy every minute of that.
'I think confidence comes from within, but also from around you as well. The players that we stand side by side with on the pitch breed confidence in each other.
'I think a lot of self-talk definitely happens, and the people you surround yourself with off the pitch, my family, is really important to me, and they breed a lot of confidence in me.'