Straight
He celebrated football at Wembley.
And he did it twice, even by tiple if you like.
He won the England team, a team that knew how to play with and without the ball, that he liked but that also suffered.
He won the game, after a beautiful tournament, crowned with a final that went from fear to vertigo, which was never boring.
But, above all, women's football won.
England and Germany honored football at the Cathedral and received an extra prize: a unique brand, a symbol of the new times.
UEFA promoted the European Championship like never before and people reacted as always when the ball turns.
Wembley was filled to sign a public record ever seen in a European Championship for both men and women (87,192 spectators, the previous mark was 79,115 in the 1964 Euro, when Spain beat the Soviet Union at the Bernabéu).
INGEngland
two
Mary Earps, Leah Williamson, Millie Bright, Lucy Bronze, Rachel Daly, Beth Mead, Georgia Stanway, Lauren Hemp, Fran Kirby, Keira Walsh, and Ellen White
GER Germany
1
Merle Frohms, Giulia Gwinn, Felicitas Rauch, Kathrin Hendrich, Marina Hegering, Lina Magull, Sara Däbritz, Lena Oberdorf, Lea Schüller, Jule Brand, and Svenja Huth
Goals
1-0 min.
61: She Toone.
1-1 min.
78: Lina Magull.
2-1 min.
109: Chloé Kelly.
Yellow cards Georgia Stanway (min. 22), Ellen White (min. 23), Felicitas Rauch (min. 39), Lena Oberdorf (min. 56), Lea Schüller (min. 56), Alessia Russo (min. 99) and Chloe Kelly (min. 111)
England honored Wembley and took the first European Championship in its history in its third attempt.
In the final that crowned the two best teams in the tournament, the Three Lions showed one more march, a faithful image of their coach Sarina Wiegman, who came to the English bench after winning the last Euro against the Netherlands.
In the end she had a hard time waking up.
The ball came and went, without direction or owner, passing from the English to the German as in a table football.
A fearful and reckless football that contradicted the game at times showy, always vertical of the English, as well as that of the consistent and combative Germans.
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg's selection sought, from the outset, to block the bands of the Three Lions, the great card in attack.
He tried, in any case, Kirby who found White's head.
She was not successful on 9, nor when Mead gave her the ball in the heart of the area so that she could finish with her left leg.
Their flyers silenced, Germany waited.
And, when it seemed that England stole control of the duel, they appeared.
Immune to the pressure of the public, to the decision of the VAR - he did not contemplate a hand from Williamson in the area -, also to the emotional smack of losing his franchise girl in the warm-up: Popp.
She suffers a kind of endless jinx, the German forward.
After missing the last three Euros through injury, she turned up at Wembley as the tournament's top scorer.
Nevertheless,
The rhythm of the duel changed after passing through the changing rooms.
Actually, Germany changed it.
For Voss-Tecklenburg the wait was over.
Wassmuth appeared first, then Magull.
The Teutons, then, were already planted in the English countryside.
But if someone capable of imagining several games in one, without fear of erasing White from the field, the top scorer in the history of the Three Lions, is Sarina Wiegman.
The Dutch went to 4-4-2 and didn't flinch when she also lost her best striker in the tournament, Mead, due to injury.
Wiegman's ingenuity sent Toone into the field.
How long did it take to prove him right?
One play.
On the first ball he touched, Toone came face to face with Frohms.
What did he come up with?
A Vaseline.
A beautiful goal to crown a historic tournament.
Then yes.
From the final of the lazy rhythm, especially fearful of the first half, we went on to an intense encounter, back and forth, symbol of two ambitious teams, with gasoline to withstand a fierce pace of play.
He squeezed and squeezed Germany.
England contracted.
The squad spat a powerful finisher at Magull.
But he had revenge.
Bright fell asleep and the German interior slipped into the small area to sign the 1-1.
The draw silenced Wembley and turned on the time machine.
As at the beginning of the duel, the fear of losing prevailed, as if the extension was going to numb the tension.
In added time it was all emotion.
England surrendered to their fans and Germany to the resistance.
With no pause in the circulation of the ball, the still ball was presented as the solution both to take a breath and to break the tie.
And so Kelly appeared.
A goal of carom and fight.
A struggling goal in the small area.
A goal, in short, indelible for the Three Lions.
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