Chloe Kelly has thanked those that ‘wrote her off’ and gave her extra motivation to assist encourage England to a penalty-shootout win over Spain within the Women’s Euro 2025 final.
For the third time on the trot, the Lionesses were forced to return from behind to grab victory from the jaws of defeat after Mariona Caldentey had given Spain a first-half lead in Basel.
Just as they’d done against Sweden and Italy previously, the holders dug deep to search out an all-important equaliser, with Alessia Russo heading home Kelly’s exquisite cross to make all of it square within the 57th minute.
Kelly – who scored a last-gasp winner for England within the semi-finals – had earlier been introduced from the substitutes bench after Lauren James exacerbated the ankle injury she had suffered 4 days earlier.
The 2 teams couldn’t be separated after extra-time and it was England who eventually prevailed after one other dramatic shootout, with Kelly converting the decisive spot-kick to seal a 3-1 win for the holders.
The Lionesses’ latest triumph represents the primary time in history that an English team have won a serious tournament on foreign soil, three years on from the side’s European Championship heroics last outing at Wembley.
It’s also the third time in succession that Sarina Wiegman has clinched the title, with the 55-year-old steering the Netherlands to the trophy back in 2017 before being appointed by the FA.
‘No, I can’t consider it!’ an emotional Wiegman told BBC Sport within the immediate aftermath of England’s triumph.
‘We said we are able to win by any means and that’s what we’ve got shown again today. I’m so pleased with the team and the staff. It’s incredible.’
Asked if she was shocked to win the trophy for a second time on the spin with England, Wiegman replied: ‘Yes, yes.
‘I just can’t consider it. I even have a medal around my neck and we’ve got a trophy.
‘It has been essentially the most chaotic tournament on the pitch – all of the challenges we had on the pitch against our opponent.
‘From the primary game it was chaos.Losing your first game and becoming European Champions is incredible. Football is chaos.’
Kelly’s magnificent campaign in Switzerland is made all of the more remarkable by the actual fact the 27-year-old got here near quitting football during a ‘dark time’ in her profession at first of the yr.
Shortly after forcing through a loan move to Arsenal having struggled for normal game-time at Manchester City, Kelly admitted: ‘It has been tough mentally and it has been draining at times.
‘But I feel for me, I do know I’m knowledgeable and I do know I hold myself to a high level, but I feel as a human, it was a troublesome time for me and I’m able to move forward now.
‘It was still a dark time for me because I didn’t know the way my future looked.’
But just half-a-year on, Kelly is a two-time European champion with the Lionesses.
Facing the media shortly after England’s win, the forward used the chance to send a pointed message to those that had doubted her in her sticky patch.
‘There have been a variety of tears at full-time, especially once I saw my family, because they were the those who come me through those dark moments,’ Kelly said.
‘I’m so grateful to be out on the back end, but when that’s a story to inform someone who possibly experiences something the identical, then tough times don’t last and just across the corner was a Champions League final.
‘I won that and now a Euros final, I’ve won that, so, thanks to everyone that wrote me off, I’m grateful.’
Kelly also made sure to thank ‘incredible woman’ Wiegman for showing faith in her and providing ‘hope’ when she ‘probably didn’t have any’ earlier within the yr.
‘She is bloody amazing,’ Kelly added.
‘She is an incredible woman. What she has done for this country, we must always all be so grateful for.
‘What she has done for me, individually, she gave me hope, once I probably didn’t have any. She gave me a chance to represent my country again.’
Kelly continued: ‘I knew that I needed to get game-time, because representing England isn’t a given.
‘But what she has done for the ladies’s game, not only in England, she has taken it to an entire other level.
‘The work doesn’t go unnoticed from the staff which are behind her, they’re incredible people and I’m so grateful to have worked with such amazing people.’
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