Gareth Southgate’s England have already broken one national record just by reaching the Euro 2020 final against Italy. Never before had the men’s side reached a European Championship final and it will the Three Lions’ first in any major tournament since the 1966 World Cup.
Contrary to popular belief, however, the English are not totally allergic to success and the women’s team have in fact reached the final of the Euros – well, its equivalent anyway, the ‘Uefa Women’s Championship’ – on two separate occasions.
Here comes the bad news if Southgate and his players are looking for positive omens – their female counterparts lost both of them.
D-Day veteran Martin Reagan took England all the way to a two-legged final in the inaugural Uefa Women’s Championship in 1984. How did they get there? By beating Denmark 2-1 in the last four.
The former tank commander’s troops then lost 1-0 in the first leg of the final against Sweden, though they did win the second leg at Luton Town’s Kenilworth Road by the same scoreline as Linda Curl scored the only goal in front of a crowd of just 2,567 fans.
The Swedes won 4-3 on penalties as Curl went from hero to villain, fluffing the opening effort. Lorraine Hanson also missed and Reagan’s chance to be written into the history books was dashed. His career coaching the national side did not have an altogether happy ending, as he was sacked after England were humbled by eventual winners Germany in the quarter-finals of the 1991 tournament.
There will be those who will understandably question whether 1984 shouldn’t really count as a major tournament at all. It was not officially recognised due to having so few teams (only 16 nations entered), the ball was smaller than the traditional size 5 used in professional football, and games only lasted 70 minutes.
A better comparison would be the 2009 final, when England met Germany with a familiar line-up featuring the likes of Alex Scott, Eni Aluko, Jill Scott and Casey Stoney. Faye White started despite breaking her cheekbone in the quarter-finals and was initially imperious in defence, back when masks were reserved for facial injuries and many of the crowd willingly wore them in support of their returning captain.
That tournament was a vindication of Hope Powell’s enormous progress, overhauling the infrastructure of a national set-up that had failed to qualify for the World Cup in 2003 and come bottom of their group at the Euros in 2005. Powell had played in that final of 1984 and said it was “phenomenal” that her own squad were able to replicate that experience.
England had only narrowly escaped their group, coming third and subsequently beating Finland and the Netherlands in the knockout stages.
The final brought crushing disappointment as the legendary Birgit Prinz and Melanie Behringer scored two goals in as many minutes to give Germany a 2-0 lead, though Karen Carney immediately got England back into it. Kim Kulig then extended Germany’s lead before Kelly Smith offered another consolation. Two goals from Inka Grings and another from Prinz killed the game off and it finished 6-2.
It might all have been so different had Fara Williams scored a free-kick early on as the Lionesses squandered a handful of chances.
The Women’s Championship still lacked a competitive edge, in truth. That was Germany’s fifth trophy in a row and they would go on to add another to the cabinet in 2013. Again, Powell’s reign ended in fractured circumstances but she had still achieved a piece of history.
England’s run elevated them to hero status in an era when even the later stages were only watched by around 1.5 million people worldwide (England’s men’s semi-final against Denmark reported an audience of over 24m in the UK alone).
So this is a country that does have a little history in reaching finals – albeit without actually winning them.
More from i on Euro 2020
- This has been Sterling’s summer – when the man was finally able to become king
- Fish & chips to fashion tips: What Southgate’s tweets tell us about the England boss
- Why there have been so many own goals – from tiredness to lazy defending
- We need to talk about Jordan Pickford – the unsung hero of this England team
- How to watch every Euro 2020 match on TV and online in the UK
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3e3Wr8I
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