England's Hannah Hampton: Breaking down the pass of the Euros so far
But it's not often a goalkeeper pulls off the sort of pass Hannah Hampton did in England's victory over the Netherlands in their Euro 2025 Group D game on Wednesday.
Defender Lucy Bronze described Hampton's contribution to England's opening goal as 'really special'; forward Alessia Russo said it was 'unreal'; head coach Sarina Wiegman called her skill 'remarkable'.
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In the 21st minute of the game in Zurich, Hampton received the ball back from Georgia Stanway and looked up to see a well-organised Dutch press closing down any passes in her own half.
That included Jill Roord and the Netherlands' record goalscorer Vivianne Miedema directly bearing down on her.
As Stanway had passed back to her, the midfielder had patted the air in the universal gesture for 'Calm it down. There's no rush.' Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh, however, pointed upfield to Alessia Russo.
It's here that a recent comment from Hampton's former Aston Villa team-mate Rachel Corsie is apt. '(Hampton) is better than anyone I've played with in terms of perceiving pressure, knowing how long you need to take a touch, play and have that calmness,' Corsie said.
'She can strike the ball (with her) right and left foot comfortably to the halfway line — flat, driven trajectory. That's remarkable. I can't imagine you'd find many Women's Super League (WSL) players even at the top clubs who can do that.'
Hampton pushed the ball onto her stronger right foot and flicked it out in front of her.
She spotted Lauren James had pulled Veerle Buurman out wide and opened up space between Buurman and Dominique Janssen for Russo to drive into on her stronger right foot.
The vision was excellent. The execution was even better. As Hampton pulled her leg back to strike the ball, she used her entire body to perfect the kick.
'Her arms are out, which indicates it's going to be a nice, powerful kick,' Archit Navandar, assistant professor of biomechanics at Madrid's polytechnic university, tells The Athletic. 'The plant/support leg is a little further away from the ball because you want to kick for distance.
'Where she puts her plant leg and the hip extension at the back, her entire range of motion is very large. When you want to kick for distance or power, you have a large range of motion. Her arms are spread out and she uses the tension of the upper body as well to transmit power to the ball.'
As Hampton strikes the ball, her leg completely straightens, showing an efficient transfer of momentum from the leg to the ball. She also cuts short her follow-through, which Navandar explains helps keep the pass flat.
By the time Buurman and Janssen have sensed danger, Russo is facing the Dutch goal and Hampton's pass has sliced open the entire Netherlands side. Her ball cuts between two centre-forwards, two central midfielders, and two centre-backs.
'(The pass) was unreal,' Russo said after the game. 'That set the tone for that move. As soon as I saw that ball coming in, I knew I didn't even have to touch it and I could turn.'
'The accuracy is all about timing and impact,' Navandar explains.
Janssen and Buurman both give chase, unwisely forgetting about James — who saunters to the edge of the box, receives a backwards pass from Russo, cuts inside on her left foot and powers the ball into the top-right corner.
It was the first blow in a knockout performance by England, and it all came from a goalkeeper under pressure from two formidable attackers.
Hampton's ball to Russo also set England's third goal, and James' second, in motion.
The goalkeeper's technical quality with her feet, which originates from her days playing outfield for Villarreal boys' academy, is one of her best attributes. Hampton has continued to hone her technique at the gym, focusing on her touch, passing, kicking and power.
Wiegman said of Hampton creating two of England's four goals: 'They were brilliant passes. She's really good with her feet, we know that — right and left — and today she just got it really right in the right moments.'
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New York Times
32 minutes ago
- New York Times
Donald Trump, the Club World Cup final, and how security protect VIPs at major sporting events
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New York Times
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Ranking the Ballon d'Or 2025 favourites: Has the Club World Cup changed things?
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The 22-year-old played 59 times in all competitions last season — more than any of his team-mates in 2024-25. Pedri can dictate the pace of Barcelona's possession single-handedly, with the ability to play a zipped through ball to a team-mate that most players would not even see. Using data from analytics company SkillCorner, no players made more line-breaking passes in La Liga than their midfield magician. Much like Raphinha, it is not that Pedri has gotten worse since The Athletic's previous rankings, but a subtle shuffle was inevitable once the biggest European trophy was handed out. Pedri continues to be one of the best midfielders in world football, and if there is a gap in your defensive lines, he will exploit it. Luis Enrique was pouring more praise on his players this week when saying that Hakimi was one of the best right-backs he has seen in his career. With such incredible form in the last 12 months, it is difficult to disagree. The 26-year-old's ability to get up and down the pitch verges on teleportation at times, supporting his side's attack as the furthest man forward but somehow the first one to make a tackle in the defensive third when PSG are on the back foot. It is that versatility that is so impressive — tucking inside into half-space areas, hugging the touchline, and making underlapping runs beyond the forward line to create a chance or score himself. 'Hakimi has freedom, he is not a full-back,' Luis Enrique said after PSG's Club World Cup victory over Real Madrid. 'When we have the ball, he can be a forward, a winger, a player between the lines, or a pivot. When we don't have the ball, he is a full-back who presses high, but he also has defensive work.' Full-backs should get more visibility in the Ballon d'Or shortlists, and none of them deserve it more than Hakimi this season. Mbappe's end to the season was not ideal. Acute gastroenteritis kept him out of much of Real Madrid's Club World Cup campaign, before an anonymous performance against PSG as his side were eliminated. Nevertheless, the individual numbers were strong for the 26-year-old during his first year in Spain. In May, Mbappe surpassed Ivan Zamorano's record of 37 goals (1992-93) scored in all competitions in a debut season for Madrid. Similarly, Mbappe broke Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano's record of 27 goals in a debut La Liga season (1953-54), finishing the campaign with 31 league goals. Sadly, individual numbers only get you so far in the Ballon d'Or reckonings, and overall, Madrid disappointed in Carlo Ancelotti's final season in charge. It would be a huge surprise if Mbappe managed to top the list in September. Two excellent finishes against Flamengo in Bayern Munich's last-16 victory encapsulated everything Kane is about. Barely looking up to see where the goal was, Kane was dead-eyed as he struck both efforts into the corner in acts of pure muscle memory. In truth, Bayern's exploits in the Club World Cup did little to move the dial in Kane's favour to lift the Ballon d'Or, but across the year, Kane's 26 goals were the most in the Bundesliga as the 31-year-old clinched the first trophy of his career. More broadly, only Dembele and Omar Marmoush had a higher rate of goals plus assists than Kane's 1.3 per 90 minutes across Europe's big five leagues. With back-to-back Kicker-Torjagerkanone's (the Bundesliga top goalscorer trophy) on his mantelpiece, people have perhaps taken Kane's productivity for granted in recent years. In a world where reliable out-and-out No 9s are a little trickier to come by, Kane is as much of a guarantee for goals as any player in world football.
New York Times
41 minutes ago
- New York Times
What Jordan Henderson can offer Brentford – a midfield metronome who can fill leadership void
After two years away, including a disastrous six-month stint at Saudi Arabian club Al Ettifaq and a more successful spell at Ajax, Jordan Henderson is set to return to English shores and sign for Brentford on a free transfer. For the west London club, it's a timely arrival after losing captain Christian Norgaard to Arsenal and speculation surrounding the futures of Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. Advertisement But the sands of time have worn on. Can a 35-year-old Henderson — once the energetic heartbeat of Jurgen Klopp's high-tempo, all-action Liverpool side — still cut it in the relentless environment of Premier League football? Here, The Athletic examines his time at Ajax for clues about how he has changed since leaving Anfield, and how this version of Henderson might fit in at Brentford. At first, Henderson's move to Ajax looked set to mirror his Saudi misadventure. Parachuted into a struggling, youthful side that had been bottom of the Eredivisie just months earlier, he was a steady but unspectacular presence as Ajax finished in fifth, 35 points adrift of champions PSV. The disarray ran so deep that Henderson even deputised as a right-sided centre-back in a 2-2 draw away at Sparta Rotterdam. His fortunes turned with the arrival of a new manager, and the clarity of a new role. Under Francesco Farioli, Henderson was redeployed as a lone defensive midfielder at the base of a three-man midfield, with Ajax reverting to their traditional 4-3-3. 'With us, he's playing more as a 'No 6' (deep-lying midfielder) than as a No 8 (further forward),' Farioli told Sky Sports. 'It was something different that the coach wanted from my position, both with and without the ball. It was great that even at my age that I could learn something new,' Henderson told reporters at the time. The shift is visible in his passmap, with start locations that cluster in deep central areas, where Henderson acted as the metronomic fulcrum of Ajax's patient build-up play. This marked a clear departure from the right-of-centre zones he occupied during Liverpool's title-winning 2019-20 season. Back then, his relentless box-to-box running and crisp passing helped progress the ball up the pitch, while his defensive work covered the spaces vacated by Trent Alexander-Arnold as the right-back surged forward. Henderson's role as the energetic glue in midfield, rather than a creative spark, has always been hard to quantify — he hasn't recorded more than 10 goal contributions in a single domestic season over the past decade. But thanks to tracking data provider SkillCorner, it's possible to gauge how his off-ball movements have helped Ajax tick over in midfield. Across Europe's top seven leagues, Henderson ranks in the 91st percentile among midfielders for movements coming short to receive the ball, a reflection of his importance in build-up play, where he constantly looks to offer an easy out-ball for his team-mates. An example of how this plays out in practice can be seen in the following screenshot from Ajax's 2-1 home victory against Feyenoord in February, where Henderson drops deep to split the centre-backs. This pattern was seen throughout the game as Henderson patiently controlled the tempo, dictating play with short snappy passes until an opening further upfield presented itself. His preference for these shorter passes is reflected in his high 'link-up play' value — measured in The Athletic's player pizza charts (below) as the percentage of short or medium-distance passes a player has made. Elsewhere, his creative threat ranks in the 88th percentile, though that owes largely to his successful conversion into a set-piece taker at Ajax, something the new Brentford boss Keith Andrews, formerly a set-piece coach, will no doubt have noted. But like any good defensive midfielder, Henderson knows when to slow the game down and when to speed it up. His first-time assist against RKC Waalwijk in January showed a sharp appreciation for when a quick pass can capitalise on a fleeting opportunity. His defensive metrics also paint the picture of a player who has quickly adapted to the demands of playing as a lone pivot. His high tackle success rate and ability to recover loose balls highlight both positional awareness and sharp instinctive timing. As writers at The Athletic have written about previously, Brentford thrive when doggedly capitalising on loose balls, and Henderson should be well equipped to support this. Advertisement His stabilising presence and composed performances from the base of midfield helped transform a floundering Ajax side and took them agonisingly close to a 37th Eredivisie title. Having led the league by nine points with five games to play, Ajax dramatically let their advantage slip. For his part, Henderson scored his sole Eredivisie goal of 2024-25 in Ajax's 2-0 final-day victory at home to Twente, but the damage had been done when they had conceded a 99th-minute equaliser against 10-man Groningen in the penultimate round. Still, the club recognised Henderson's role in making them contenders again. In a statement after his exit was confirmed, Ajax technical director Alex Kroes said: 'Jordan was a true captain for us, both on and off the pitch. An international top player who, through his mentality and leadership qualities, made a significant contribution to our qualification for the Champions League.' For all his intelligence on the pitch, it's his dressing-room personality that sets him apart in the eyes of his coaches. Last season, Farioli — who instantly made Henderson captain — told The Athletic, 'Jordan is an example. It was my decision at the beginning of the season to give him the armband because he personifies the values we want to have here.' Klopp echoed that praise for his character and leadership after Henderson picked up the Football Writers' Association Footballer of the Year award in 2020: 'Hendo's package of leadership, attitude and consistency was really special this year.' Norgaard plays a similarly unfussy but vital quick-passing, tempo-setting game to the one Henderson was asked to show at Ajax, making him a natural — if not quite as physically dynamic — plug-and-play replacement for those aspects of Brentford's build-up. But it's the vacuum of leadership and tenacity that comes with losing a captain like Norgaard that's tougher to fill. Henderson will more than compensate here.
