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10:40am on Monday, 28th July, 2025:
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We got home from Bristol yesterday in time to watch the final of the Women's Euros. England beat Spain on penalties, which is to say, on coin tosses.
In the player rankings, as voted by the public on the BBC site, Kelly came out top with Russo second, Hampton third and Agyemang fourth.
Attackers and goal-scorers always do well in these polls, as do goalkeepers who make their mark (Hampton saved a couple of penalties). I wouldn't have put Agyemang ahead of Hemp (who was sixth, behind Bronze); Hemp caused Spain all kinds of problems on their left, and never ran out of energy the whole time. Agyemang could have occupied two Spanish players if she'd stayed upfield for corners, but she's good at heading so joined in with defence; I think the Spanish manager would have been pleased with this — and the fact that she replaced Russo instead of playing alongside her.
The reason England won wasn't because of our strikers, though, it was because of our defenders. I'm a huge fan of Greenwood, who never gets enough credit in my opinion (she was joint tenth with Charles, who only played half of extra time). Williamson, ranked seventh, is also exceptional, yet she only seems to be spoken of in terms of her captaincy, not her playing ability. Carter, ranked fifteenth, is a great stopper but she's not fast and her distribution is awful, so I won't argue that she should be ranked low.
If Spain had a proper centre forward they might have done more damage. They're weak in that position, though, and played González as a false 9. If they can find a player whom they can field as an actual number 9 against resilient teams like England and Germany, they'll be unstoppable. Some of their players are superb. Naturally, because they were on the losing side, they were ranked by BBC viewers two points lower than they would have been if they'd have won. Bonmati, Caldentey, Pina and the goalkeeper, Coll, were top class. The BBC poll put Ouahabi first and López second, followed by Bonmati, Caldentey, Coll and Pina. I don't know why Ouahabi came out top, she was put on to replace Carmona, who had come off second-best against Hemp, only to suffer the same fate herself. López missed every chance that came her way; I can only assume that her high ranking by BBC viewers was in gratitude for this.
I was expecting Spain to win 2-0, probably in common with much of Spain, but I'm super-pleased that England finally came together and held out.
Jeez, penalties, though....
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