The meaning behind the Lionesses’ ‘click’ celebration

ZURICH — Even within the Lionesses camp the “clicking” celebration from the Wales game has been a mystery.

Substitutes Beth Mead and Aggie Beever-Jones ran straight to the bench clicking their fingers after their goals in the 6-1 victory.

But when Keira Walsh was asked what it meant afterwards, she admitted she isn’t usually privy to what her teammate’s celebrations mean.

“The girls don’t include me because I don’t tend to score,” Walsh joked.

Ella Toone, likewise, was none the wiser. “I didn’t really know what was going on,” she said. “I think it was a little inside joke, but towards the end I was in on it.”

The reason Toone and Walsh won’t have known the inspiration behind it was in fact because they were both in the starting XI – and it was concocted from the bench before kick-off.

Why England players click after goals.

Mead and Kelly clicking towards the bench (Photo: Getty)

Sarina Wiegman has preferred to refer to “finishers” rather than substitutes to underline what an important role they play in the squad.

“We have a little group of us, a group chat [called] ‘the finishers’ as you call it,” explained Chloe Kelly.

“They’re the positive clicks [we do] on the bench before the game, you probably saw we were all clicking, like ‘what are they doing?!’

“And we said, if one of us comes on and scores, let’s do that as our celebration, the one that we came up with it on the bench.”

Mead started the defeat to France but lost her place to accommodate Lauren James’ switch to the right, while Kelly, Jess Park, Niamh Charles, Beever-Jones, Michelle Agyemang and Grace Clinton have all been given minutes off the bench.

But it was defender Maya Le Tissier who came up with the idea of a WhatsApp group for the players, so they could share pictures of the clicking celebration

“I was saying to Lotte [Wubben-Moy], throughout the tournaments that we’ve been playing in, whether that was the home Euros, [the World Cup in] Australia or here, the group of finishers have been incredible, supporting the team that are playing and being ready for your moment,” Kelly added.

“The level of training is really high in the gym and we’re just grafting. It’s been really nice to see that as a consistent thing with England – the finishers being ready for their moment and taking it when it comes.”

from Football - The i Paper https://ift.tt/EKdLjHs