The Letzigrund looks gorgeous under a pale pastel evening sun. The noise washes over the athletic track where Carl Lewis and Asafa Powell once broke the world record, and where Sweden are now flying out of the blocks and leaving England trailing in their dust.
We do not yet know that in many ways this is simply the prologue, that this devastating early two-goal flurry is actually relatively benign in comparison with the carnage that will follow.
We do not yet know that Lauren James will end up playing almost an hour in a double pivot. We do not yet know that Lucy Bronze will end up wearing the captain’s armband on her wrist and kicking a giant credit card advert. Hannah Hampton, nose still unbloodied, has not the faintest inkling that this will end up being the greatest night of her career.
But they all know something. Even if they’re not entirely conscious of it. Even as an utterly shambolic England trail Sweden 2-0 and the obituaries for their Euro 2025 campaign are being scribbled, there is a little knot of refusal there, a team with an entirely unwarranted calmness at its core, a team that against all the available visual evidence still trusts that everything is going to work out eventually.
Which, after half an hour of Swedish dominance, takes a pretty significant leap of faith. Alessia Russo has barely been able to get into the game, Georgia Stanway is manically scurrying around. Jess Carter, based on her chasing and pointing and deathly reluctance to touch the ball, is clearly training for a future career as a referee.
OK, so you may not have underestimated Sweden. But you may just have overestimated yourselves. And perhaps this was the inevitable outcome of a buildup focused almost entirely on Sweden’s directness and physicality, on the need for England to show “proper English” qualities. There was no clear plan on the ball, and precious little quality in it in any case: an entire team so absorbed by the grapple that they had forgotten to trust in their technical ability.
Sweden, meanwhile, have come with an entirely transparent strategy: funnel the ball right, target England’s left-back weakness with long balls over the top and in behind, and simply wait to collect your jackpot. England have no runners from deep, no flying full-backs, no real intention to create overloads, and just the same hopeless balls punted up the channels.
Even so, they know something. They know the depth they possess on their bench. They know that they have the back three to fall back on, different combinations and angles of attack. They know they have the legs to last 90 minutes and 120 if necessary. And most of all they know they are up against a team already instinctively beginning to entrench themselves, whose tournament history suggests a certain hard-wired frailty that they can prod and exploit, if only they can take this game deep enough.
And so the lateness of Sarina Wiegman’s substitutions, almost a kind of wilful stubbornness, a blind faith that things would eventually come good, in the absence of any corroborating evidence. The vivid patterns of Chloe Kelly transform England’s right flank and the fresh legs of Michelle Agyemang offer a new threat alongside Russo. Bronze, by now suffused with main character energy, pops up at the back post to convert Kelly’s cross. Less than two minutes later, Agyemang pounces on Beth Mead’s header to level the game.
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Even as Sweden survive to extra time, even as they continue to create chances on the counter, there is an almost irresistible momentum building behind England as penalties approach. Even amid the farce and fragility of that penalty shootout, it is Sweden who crumble under the pressure while Bronze, Kelly and Hampton hold their nerve.
In a way, you could scarcely hope to see a better example of the power of self-branding in tournament football. England have so often turned up with no more elaborate strategy than simply being England, making a virtue of doing just enough, simply hanging in there and trusting in their intrinsic pedigree to see them through. It was a strategy that powered a flawed team all the way through the last World Cup final, and may just be good enough to do so again here.
It is slightly trite to conclude that great teams win when playing badly. Perhaps the hallmark of certain great teams is in sensing almost subconsciously when they are allowed to play badly and when they are not, when the level needs to be raised, when the stakes are at their sharpest. It will probably be good enough against Italy; it will probably not be good enough against Spain or France. But for now this curate’s egg of a team rolls judderingly, thrillingly, onto its next grand climax.
