How can you be so ill-prepared emotionally for something that was always a distinct possibility?
From the moment that England appointed Sarina Wiegman in September 2021, they were favourites to get here. When they humiliated Norway, possibility became probability. Yet there is something within the English sporting psyche that disallows confidence for fear that it will be misinterpreted as arrogance and used as a weapon to kill your own spirit.
Did you walk through the same process during the semi-final? Fear that Sweden were dominant at 0-0, fear that England had merely awoken a beast at 1-0, fear that England were sitting too deep at 2-0. Alessia Russo’s backheel wasn’t just magical in and of itself; it marked the moment in which our fear dissipated. But fear can never be destroyed; Germany offer their own sporting demons, for this England team and others.
Sunday brings with it a strange mix of the present and the future. For all the pre-match discussions of team selection, of Wembley sellout and of glory, this is a national sport that, because of its prolonged and gross mistreatment, is growing up in real time. The European Championship final is both the pinnacle and yet, by the very nature of progress, is simply another stepping stone along the way.
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The match, screened live, did not even make BBC Two’s top 30 programme audiences that week (which bottomed out with an episode of Eggheads that was watched by 1.53m people).
The final will break the record set for a UK TV audience for a women’s game, currently held by the 11.7m that watched the World Cup semi-final against the USA in 2019.
Imagine the pressure for a moment. When a year ago England prepared to face Italy in the men’s European Championship final, they were only trying to undo 55 years of perceived underachievement, to satisfy a national desire that had warped into angst and occasional despair.
They were only trying to avoid being labelled as failures for losing a match that no team for more than half a century had even reached. They were only aiming to make good on a cultural shift in how England developed its footballers and its football coaches.
This team has all that and more. They are searching for recognition for those who have come before, too many of whom have been largely and unforgivably forgotten: Carol Thomas, Sheila Parker, Sylvia Gore, Debbie Bampton, Gillian Coulthard and a hundred more who could be listed here.
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After the Sweden game, captain Leah Williamson spoke of the responsibility to win on Sunday as a way of thanking those who made it possible. She namechecked Thomas as one of the giants on whose shoulders she is standing.
It would be the end of a journey, from being banned from Football Association pitches and making do with suburban scrubland to being championed by that same organisation after victory on Wembley’s carpet.
They are also setting the legacy for the next generation of young girls, personified by Tess Dolan, the eight-year-old girl whose carefree dancing after the semi-final symbolised the creation of an affinity with the Lionesses that will last a lifetime.
Just a little girl in full England kit dancing along to Sweet Caroline…
— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) July 26, 2022
This is what it's all about#WEURO2022 #BBCEuros #BBCFootball #Lionesses pic.twitter.com/aZs1Be5OhC
Participation will inevitably increase whatever Sunday’s result; there are already stories of girls’ teams being created in villages across the country. But do not doubt the sway and clout that winning a major tournament will have. Aiming to copy Beth Mead is one thing; aiming to copy Beth Mead, European champion another entirely.
The same is true of spectating as well as playing. The greatest challenge for the Football Association is to convert record crowds at European Championship games into a greater WSL and Women’s Championship audience when the return of the all-encompassing men’s domestic game returns. If clubs can advertise the chance to watch heroic champions for cut-price entrance, that becomes a far easier sell.
If all this rests on the shoulders of one squad, Wiegman’s job is to somehow use the pressure and lose it. It must become motivation while simultaneously not strangling players who will be plenty nervous enough. The Lionesses can create an unshakeable legacy on Sunday. The best way to achieve it may well be trying, for 90, 120 or however many minutes it takes, to forget about it.
The secret – infinitely easier said than done – will be to have some fun. That has been Wiegman’s motto across the last 10 months and it was always the first rule for the Lionesses this summer: to mask the seriousness of the task with the sheer enjoyment of the experience. Watch Russo, Mead, Fran Kirby and Georgia Stanway on Tuesday and try to tell me they weren’t delighting in the experience. But that only gets harder when the magnitude of the achievement looms closer into view.
London – both Wembley and Trafalgar Square – will be alive with fever on Sunday. It is not patronising to say that this tournament has attracted a live audience determined to enjoy themselves; disappointment would not lead to media witch hunt or solipsistic angst about missed opportunities.
Across England, we will crowd around televisions and pray that something that veers dangerously close to destiny will be delivered. It might not feel like it when the palms are sweaty and the legs shake a little every time Alexandra Popp stares Mary Earps in the face, but be in no doubt: we have the easy bit.
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