As England prepared to play Spain in the quarter-finals of the Euros, Sarina Wiegman gathered her team and asked them a question. “You’ve got 10 days to change your life,” she said. “Do you want it or not?” Five months later, as the year draws to a close, even Wiegman could not have foreseen the impact England’s victory has created, and not only for them. It was not just their own lives the Lionesses were changing.
This has been their year. At the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year awards on Wednesday night, the Lionesses completed a resounding hat-trick of the major prizes. Beth Mead, England’s player of the Euros and the winner of the Golden Boot, picked up the main award. Wiegman, who succeeded where previous England managers had failed since 1966, was coach of the year. When it came to team of the year, there could only be one winner. No other victory has been as historic or groundbreaking as what the Lionesses achieved at Wembley this summer.
The memories came flooding back as England’s triumph was remembered. Chloe Kelly’s winner against Germany was the moment it all changed, the purest outpouring of emotion as she whipped off her shirt. It sparked what was to follow: the scenes at full-time as the realisation dawned that it had finally come home, the celebrations in Trafalgar Square and the sunglasses hiding hungover eyes, as a team was embraced by its nation.
It was a victory that rewrote history, England’s first major international title in 56 years. That alone would have been special enough but the Lionesses represented something else and understood what they were playing for. They stood for progress, opportunity and inclusion. They were playing in a major tournament in England, 100 years after women had been banned from playing football, and only 50 years after that ban was lifted. The Lionesses embraced that pressure and what they could achieve for women’s football and wider society.
Moments after the full-time whistle, and as her teammates were losing their heads around her, captain Leah Williamson grabbed the microphone and called for the support the Lionesses had been shown during the Euros to transmit to the club game.
In the days after England’s victory, the Lionesses used their platform to demand equal access to football for girls in school. Since then, the FA have said attendances in the Women’s Super League are up 227 per cent from last season, while there has been a 15 per cent increase in female youth teams. This is a team who stands up to its words and in the months since the Euros win, Williamson and defender Lotte Wubben-Moy have met with government ministers to ensure there is action to follow the pledges made in the glow of England’s victory.
They have continued to push for change even as their profile has been transformed off it. Even before joining an illustrious list of Sports Personality of the Year winners, Mead had become one of the most recognisble athletes in the country after finishing the Euros as the Golden Boot winner and player of the tournament. Jill Scott retired from international duty but won I’m a Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!, adding Queen of the Jungle to her title of Euros winner. Lionesses have been appearing on primetime TV talk shows. When Wiegman said winning the Euros gave the opportunity to change their lives, even she did not expect this. “Within six weeks they became famous,” Wiegman said. “Some players can’t walk down the street anymore without being almost mobbed.”
Wiegman, who is the first woman to win the coach award at Sports Personality of the Year since it began in 1999, was exactly who England needed. The former Netherlands manager understood her task brilliantly, identifying a talented squad of players who were on the verge of taking the next step and helping them to achieve it. “I think she changed so much,” England’s record goalscorer Ellen White says in the new BBC documentary, Lionesses: Champions of Europe. “She’s given us a sense of belief and she had that communication in a manager that we’ve never had before.” Wiegman revealed that she took steps to learn about the English culture following her appointment last September.
It can feel strange, wrong even, to select a single player out of a team for an individual award. Mead was not so far ahead of her teammates that the odds for her Sports Personality of the Year award suggested. England had other key players at the Euros, with Williamson’s leadership and Keira Walsh’s class in midfield also standing out, but Mead was the one who seized the opportunity a home tournament provides and produced a series of brilliant attacking displays.
She played fearlessly, continuing the form from the season that had been inspired from the pain of being left out of GB’s Olympics squad, and sparked the Euros into life with his stunning display in the 8-0 win over Norway. The goals of course helped, and Mead scored more than any other player up to the final, but it was the leap the forward took on the big stage that was the most extraordinary. It in many ways symbolised that of her team. During the Euros, Lucy Bronze wrote Mead a note which said: “You haven’t surprised me at this tournament because I’ve always known you were that good.”
This will be forgotten in the years to come, but for the Lionesses it was almost not meant to be. England were 10 minutes away from being knocked out against Spain in the quarter-finals, a defeat that would have put a pin in the tournament, but they responded to the pressure and expectation. Ella Toone’s late equaliser rescued England and led to Georgia Stanway’s brilliant winner in extra time. From there, the momentum continued to gather. Alessia Russo’s outrageous back-heel against Sweden brought with it a giddy and collective sense of belief, which fuelled the anticipation ahead of England’s return to Wembley.
To even reach the final was a victory in itself. England’s players realised the opportunity a home Euros gave them and the Lionesses felt they needed to reach Wembley and play in front of the crowds that would follow. Williamson admitted to breaking down in the dressing room after the semi-final win over Sweden, such was the enormity of England playing in front of 87,000. Without it, there would not have been the thousands walking down Wembley Way on that Sunday afternoon at the end of July, and there would not have been what followed.
The final had the most glorious ending, and produced the iconic image of Kelly whipping her shirt off in celebration of England taking the lead in extra time. It was the moment where everything changed but before then it is easy to forget how it had not gone to plan. Germany had frustrated England in a tense and physical final. When the eight-time European champions equalised to force extra time and then looked to be on top, it felt like history was repeating itself. What struck so many people was how England produced something else, something extra, something that had never been seen before. Without a doubt, this has been their year.
