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The Independent
3 days ago
- Sport
- The Independent
Michelle Agyemang heading for the big time after Euro 2025 heroics
Midfielder Ella Toone fully expects England team-mate Michelle Agyemang will get stopped for a few more selfies once they leave the Euro 2025 bubble. Agyemang is undeniably the breakout star of the defending champions' European campaign where, from their luxury accommodations perched high above Zurich, it is relatively simple for the youngest Lioness on Sarina Wiegman's squad to block out the escalating buzz around her. But as soon as they leave Switzerland – be it with a trophy after Sunday's final with Spain or not – the 19-year-old Arsenal forward, who twice saved the Lionesses from elimination in this tournament, has unequivocally arrived. 'Michelle, it's mad, like I would think she's about 30 years old, she's so mature,' said Toone of catalyst Agyemang, who netted equalisers in England's stunning quarter- and semi-final comebacks. 'She's so humble, she's coming to this tournament with freedom, you know, not a worry, not a care. She's just gone out there and done what's been asked of her. 'She's been amazing for us. She's turned up in big moments when we've needed her. She's got a lot of talent, and she can do a lot of things that not many players can do. 'Even when she scored and kept us in games, she's been the same Michelle that she was when she started this tournament. So, yeah, I'm absolutely buzzing for her. It's nice for good people to get things that they deserve, and she's definitely one of those people.' Agyemang and Arsenal team-mate Chloe Kelly have been compared to Alessia Russo and best friend Toone, England's 'super-subs' during their Euro 2022 triumph. The the latter came off the bench twice to score at that home tournament, including the first of the Lionesses' goals in their 2-1 extra-time victory over Germany in the Wembley final. And yet Agyemang's anointing this summer is even more spectacular, considering her heroics in the knockouts came during just her third and fourth senior England appearances. She burst onto the scene as a last-minute replacement for an injured Russo, then scored 41 seconds into her England debut in April, ultimately convincing Wiegman she deserved a place in her 23-woman squad. Agyemang has spent the last Women's Super League season on loan at Brighton, and could still go out on loan again for the new campaign to ensure more regular playing time – and would no doubt receive plenty of offers. She might also remain with the Champions League winners – where she will join new recruit Olivia Smith, women's football's first £1million player, at one of the most well-supported clubs in the world. Either scenario, it seems, comes with a much brighter spotlight on a wise-beyond-her-years forward who admires Kelly Smith, Russo and Lauren James but says she wants to be a 'unique player' who offers 'something different'. Toone, who also scored in the 2023 World Cup final, knows exactly what it is like to achieve notoriety in a major tournament – and some of the stranger consequences that come with it. 'She might get papped eating a pasty like I did!' Toone exclaimed. 'I'll have to warn her about that. 'I think she's definitely in the bubble now but I think when she gets out she'll be recognised a lot more than she was before the tournament, that's for sure, and she definitely deserves that as well.'
The Independent
19-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Independent
Matthew Brennan: The young British talent making waves in elite cycling
You wouldn't immediately know Matthew Brennan is the breakout star of the 2025 cycling season so far. One look at his results and performances would tell you so – but the 19-year-old has a businesslike approach and doesn't dwell on his success, knowing there's more to be done. 'It's gone well so far,' he says modestly, 'I've been enjoying it. That's the main thing in this sport – if you don't enjoy it then it becomes quite a hard job.' The Brit burst onto the scene with two back-to-back wins in March, riding for the development squad of WorldTour outfit Visma-Lease a Bike, before taking his first pro win at the Grand Prix de Denain later that month. 'I went in with the expectation of just seeing what happens,' he says. 'We made a joke and said shall we make it three out of three? 'It was one of them where you don't really know what you've achieved until a while later,' he adds. The cycling world did, and sat up and took notice of the Darlington teenager. Formerly a junior rider on Fensham Howes-MAS Design, the team run by Tom Pidcock 's father Giles, Brennan joined Visma-Lease a Bike's development squad in 2024 and debuted for their elite team aged just 18. He took back-to-back wins at two one-day races in Croatia last season to kickstart life on the development team – also beginning his habit of winning on consecutive race days – and signed a three-year contract with their senior outfit from 2025. With the 'first pro win' box ticked in Denain, Brennan had also set himself a target of a first WorldTour victory this season. Even he probably couldn't have expected to do it at the first time of asking, as a last-minute replacement for two-time Tour de France champion Jonas Vingegaard at the Volta a Catalunya, an elite stage race. Rather than being daunted by the situation, Brennan embraced it. He made it four wins in a row with victory at the end of a long, attritional, soaking wet day in Sant Feliu de Guixols, chasing down a late flyer by Alpecin-Deceuninck's Tibor del Grosso in the final kilometre and holding off a bona fide sprinter in Kaden Groves, also of Alpecin, for the win. 'I still watch it back now and think, how on earth did I do that?!' he admits. 'It was a really cool way to win your first ever WorldTour victory.' Brennan had something of an advantage on that stage. 'They're familiar training roads because I lived in Girona over the winter and Spanish roads are actually ice when it's raining,' he says. 'I said to the [sports director], this is going to be a crazy finish because of all the corners, and I'd rather be at the front than at the back. We looked at the finish from last year and went into the race knowing it was a possibility. I just rode at my pace and remember seeing the hill to the final and I thought, this is longer and steeper than it looked in the recon!' He nearly made it five wins from five race days, coming second on stage two's sprint to compatriot Ethan Hayter – 'I still kick myself about that one' – but was back to winning ways on stage five. 'The team were quite confident after the stage one victory to go full gas for it, and they worked pretty much the whole stage to keep me in position. You're four days in and you've got two victories, so it wasn't too bad.' Brennan speaks with a very British understatement: his groundbreaking season has been 'nice', his string of impressive victories 'cool'. But he admits he has surprised himself with his level and the wins he's picked up so far: seven and counting. His attitude feels integral to that meteoric rise. 'I don't go into a race saying I can't win, I go in saying, it's hard to win this, but it's possible,' he explains. 'If it happens it's fantastic, but if it doesn't, I speak with my race coach, Jesper Morkov, and we look at what happened, where it went wrong, what I could do next time.' Only days after we speak Brennan notches another victory, this time in Sunday's Rund um Koln – a race he finished sixth in last year – with the development squad. Visma-Lease a Bike are managing his road calendar to avoid burnout, with the Tour of Norway, Dwars door het Hageland and British national championships his next targets. 'I did [the nationals road race] last year and I thought it was the hardest bike race in the world,' he says, but his threshold for that has probably gone up significantly. Paris-Roubaix, where he finished a very respectable 44th on his debut, is his favourite race of his season so far. 'I felt like I came off that race and couldn't have done anything more. Then you have all the crowds, it's crazy. When you're dropped and you're still fighting to get to the velodrome, and you have thousands of people shouting you on through the cobbled sectors, it's something quite special.' Brennan's calendar has been varied and he's reluctant to pigeonhole himself into one specific style of racing. He says, 'It's more just leaning towards where the strengths are and if we can build on the weaknesses, even better. 'I'd like to see how far I can get in the Classics. These races that are really hard and heavy where maybe pure sprinters can't get round, I can survive quite well and still have that acceleration at the end.' Inevitably the media hype machine has kicked into gear, but Brennan resists lazy comparisons to other riders, as some have tried to make - particularly to British sprinting legend Mark Cavendish. He says, 'They're searching for a storyline. It's fair enough, they've got to do their job. But in the real world, if you look at Cav or Wout [van Aert], someone who knows cycling properly would go, we're very different people. It's not really a great question to ask in my opinion. Cav doesn't win stages at 3000m of altitude. Wout can, but Wout is a much bigger engine than me, he can climb better. 'It's nice that people want to compare me to these top level riders, don't get me wrong, but we are very different and that's something that needs to be recognised.' Brennan is open about his long-term goals – including a potential return to the track, in which he is a former junior world champion, in time for the LA Olympics – but approaches them with the same measured attitude. As for any British rider, the lure of the 2027 Tour de France, which will begin on British soil, is strong. 'If I'm ready I'd like to go, if I'm not I would rather take it step by step and be in the right place. Even some of the best riders really struggle to find the balance in the second half of the year when they might be tired from the Tour. 'It's something that puts your body under a lot of pressure so it's not something I want to rush. If I do turn up I'd love to take the yellow jersey on day one.'
