Leah Williamson believes England's 'vulnerability' aided Euro 2025 victory

Yahoo

3 days ago

Leah Williamson believes it took vulnerability from England to be able to unlock the belief that saw them win back-to-back European Championships in Basel.
The Lionesses came back from a goal down to draw 1-1 with world champions Spain at St. Jakob Park, before defeating them 3-1 on penalties.
It saw Williamson lift her second European title as England captain, becoming the only senior England captain to do so on foreign soil.
But while buzzwords like resilience and a never-say-die attitude have followed their tournament trajectory, the 28-year-old suggests it was the willingness of her side to open themselves up to a belief in their own ability that proved the real key to success.
'You can have all of those words, and sport has all of those words circulating all the time and then you have people that are brave and put that into action and decide that you're going to go for it,' Williamson explained.
'You leave yourself vulnerable and all of those things. If you really, really try hard and it's not quite enough, that's an awful feeling.
'To put yourself out there like that, the reward is so great and we were brave enough to do it. I think that's the key to the team.
'Sarina [Wiegman] believes in us so much, it's hard not to believe that yourself. She said the same thing as she said before, 'We don't have to win, we want to win, and we're capable of winning so it's up to you girls,' and we did it.'
England had made a habit of coming back from behind, closing a two-goal deficit against Sweden in the quarter-finals before coming back from 1-0 down against both Italy and Spain.
But having lost their opening match against France, England had played must-win football all from the outset and while it may not always have been pretty, they became accustomed to getting the job done.
'It was a hard-fought tournament and after our first game we looked ourselves in the mirror, we knew what we had to do, and we did it, repeatedly,' said Williamson.
'And now we're back-to-back champions and that feels good.
'Thank you to those of you who stuck with us. We'll party for you tonight if you've got work tomorrow and if not, go and enjoy yourselves.'
It was club team-mate Alessia Russo who had headed England level, after Mariona Caldentey gave Spain the lead after 25 minutes.
A resolute defensive display from Williamson and co kept the scores level and as neither team could find a breakthrough, with Salma Paralluelo's profligacy in front of goal at times England's saving grace, it was to penalties once more.
The Lionesses had found their route to success from a shootout against Sweden and would do so again, despite not having favoured penalty takers Russo or Georgia Stanway on the pitch.
Instead captain Williamson was one of those to step up, and while she saw her penalty saved by Cata Coll, Chloe Kelly did the bidding to make England Euro 2025 champions.
'I said, 'Really?! I made the cut?'' said Williamson on being picked to take a penalty.
'I struggled the back end of the tournament with an injury and I was very grateful to get through the game. I didn't think it was going to carry me that far, and it did.
'I hit it a little bit too low, I would have gone higher if I could do it again. But on the way back, Chloe said to me, 'Don't worry about it.' If anybody is going to tell me that in a penalty shootout, I'll take it off her.'