Lionesses complete history by beating Germany in Euro Final

England created history by winning their first major women’s tournament in dramatic fashion at Wembley on Sunday.

Substitute Chloe Kelly poked home a rebound late in extra time to send a record crowd of 87,102 into raptures. Earlier the Lionesses had taken a second half lead through Ella Toone’s delightful chip before Lina Magull levelled for the Germans to send the game into extra time.

Sarina Wiegman named an unchanged starting line-up, with the England manager keeping to the same eleven in every match of the tournament. Germany were dealt a massive blow before the kick off when the prolific Alex Popp was ruled out of the game due to an injury sustained during the warm up.

Unlike in most of the Lionesses games in the tournament the hosts were quickly out of the blocks and within the opening three minutes Ellen White’s header was comfortably saved by the German keeper.

Germany went close after ten minutes with England thankful for Lucy Bronze’s block on Sara  Daebritz. The Lionesses started to loose their discipline briefly with Georgia Stanway and White finding their name into the referees book within a minute of each other.

Germany’s best chance in the opening half followed a corner and an almighty goalmouth scramble with Leah Williamson coming to the rescue.

White had a good chance to break the deadlock before the interval, but fired over with the sides going into the break 0-0.

Germany started of the second half with more urgency than the first with Magull’s curled shot a whisker away.

Lionesses’s manager Wiegman decided to put on both Ella Toone and Elesia Russo and within minutes the gamble proved decisive after a wonderful threaded pass from Keira Walsh found Toone who showed a huge amount of composure beating two defenders  before a sublime sending a sublime chip into the net.

Germany- who have never lost a European final- levelled with a well worked goal with Magull’s one touch finish at the near post to send the game into extra time.

Chances were few and far between in the extra thirty minutes and it always looked like one chance would win the final. That fell to England following a corner, Germany failed to deal with the danger with Kelly prodding home at the second attempt.

It was her first ever international goal, albeit a scrappy won which she didn’t care how it went in. Kelly took off her shirt to celebrate and was booked for her actions, but the smile on her face said everything.

There was just ten minutes for England to hang on and create history. The Lionesses dictated the closing amount of time comfortably with Russo’s shot turned over.

Once the final whistle sounded England celebrated loud and proud with Wiegman celebrating her second successive Women’s European Championship after guiding the Netherlands to the title four years ago.

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