Congratulations to the Lionesses - back-to-back European Champions.
The first senior England team to win a major tournament on foreign soil. Sarina Weigman’s 100% penalty shoot-out record with England. Chloe Kelly showing elite mentality over and over again – the winner in the Euro 2022 final; the 5th penalty to win the Finalissima in 2023; scoring a penalty in the shoot-out against Sweden in the Euro 2025 quarter-final; the winner against Italy in the semi-final; the 5th penalty against Spain to win the final. The Lionesses continue to break records so Game Insights analyst, Luke Saunders, looks at 3 areas that helped them leave Switzerland with their winners’ medals.
A game of two halves
In the first half, Spain dominated the ball, completing 301/350 passes compared to England’s 120/150. Spain’s control led to more shots – they had 7 shots to England’s 5 but England had more on target – 3 compared to 2 for Spain. Spain completed 4/15 crosses compared to England’s 0/3.
In the below image, you can see England’s passing heat map from the first half of the final. They struggled to get the ball high up the pitch as they were pinned back by Spain, but the Lionesses were consistent with their approach – build centrally and then look to attack out wide.
Image showing England’s first half passing heat map. They are attacking from left to right. Lighter blue area shows more passes, darker blue shows fewer passes, no blue means no passes. Yellow arrows indicate the areas that England wanted to progress the ball to. England built centrally but were unable to use possession high up the pitch as Spain forced them deep inside their defensive third.
Going into half time behind, England had the self-belief in their tactics having been in this situation before, coming from behind in each of the previous 2 knockout matches. They responded appropriately.
Spain continued to have more of the ball but rather than 181 more accurate passes than England, the difference was reduced to only 51 (Spain: 180/212 accurate passes to England’s 129/156 accurate passes). Spain completed 4/10 crosses but pivotally, England completed 3/6 – including Chloe Kelly’s assist of Alessia Russo’s equaliser.
The passing heat map below from England’s second half reflects their ability to get the ball higher up the pitch. Their strategy remained the same – build centrally, albeit higher up the pitch, then look to exploit the wide areas to deliver crosses into the Spanish box.
They used short passes in the central areas to draw the Spanish players in and then moved the ball out wide into space. When playing longer passes, they hit the ball into space beyond the Spanish defensive line and with willing runners like Lauren Hemp, they got themselves into 1v1 situations often.
Image showing England’s second half passing heat map. They are attacking from left to right. Lighter blue area shows more passes, darker blue shows fewer passes, no blue means no passes. Yellow arrows indicate the areas that England wanted to progress the ball to. England attempted most of their passes centrally, looking to exploit spaces in the wide areas higher up the pitch.
England stuck to their tactics and strategies by holding off Spain’s first-half dominance. In the first half, . In the second half, England flipped the script and registered 0.2xG higher than Spain (Spain: 0.7xG; England: 0.9xG).
Creating space to deliver crosses
One of England’s attacking principles was to get the ball out wide into dangerous areas and deliver crosses into the 18-yard box. Across the whole tournament, England rank highly in all crossing events per 90 minutes:
- Crosses attempted – 2nd (23)
- Crosses completed – 1st (11)
- Cross success – 2nd (47%)
- Crosses that end in a shot – 1st (4)
- Crosses that end in a goal – 1st (1)
England’s use of long passes from their own half to penetrate beyond the high Spanish defensive line caused uncertainty. This meant that Spain were not always able to get out and press the England player on the ball quickly and were not compact in their defensive shape. England used this to their advantage when scoring their equaliser – they penetrated through the middle of the Spanish defensive block before going out wide to deliver a cross. The stretched defensive shape meant England’s strikers were player-for-player against Spain’s defenders in the box. Alessia Russo’s ability to scan and be aware of the space created around her put her in the perfect position to finish Chloe Kelly’s pinpoint cross. A mention for Ella Toone’s support in the goal too – she used clever deception to make a movement behind the Spanish centre back which created more space in the 18-yard box for Russo to head the ball unmarked.
Check out the two images below to see how England created space and penetrated through Spain to score the equaliser.
Wide angle image showing the full pitch just as Keira Walsh passes the ball to Georgia Stanway in the lead up to England’s equaliser in the Euro 2025 final. The area behind Spain’s defence is highlighted as well as text to show that England were able to exploit spaces left by Spain not being in a compact defensive shape.
Wide angle image showing the full attacking third, just as Chloe Kelly is about to cross the ball to Alessia Russo who scores England’s equaliser in the Euro 2025 final. Russo’s ability to scan to create space is noted, as well as Toone’s deceptive movement to also create space.
Defensive heroes
England were resilient in defence, showing excellent control and restraint to remain compact when forced back into a low block. As the game went on and more space was created, the Lionesses worked hard for each other time and time again, applying defensive cover behind teammates to follow Spanish forward runs. Jess Carter and Alex Greenwood were standout performers with their ability to control the space in behind and deal with Spain’s threat out wide.
Hannah Hampton deservedly picked up the Player of the Match award for her outstanding performance in the final – she faced 7 shots, saving 6 and crucially saved 2 of Spain’s penalties. She dived the right way for 3/4 of Spain’s penalties, only being beaten by Patricia Guijarro’s composed, central finish. Across the whole tournament, she faced the 2nd most shots (24) and made the 2nd most saves (17).
From our fearless goalkeeper to our ‘Tough’ Lucy Bronze. Effectively playing the tournament on one leg did not stop her from being a vital player for the Lionesses - of all players across the whole tournament, she had the most successful defensive actions (74) (duels, interceptions and sliding tackles), the most ball recoveries (90) and the 2nd most ball recoveries in the opponent’s half (39).
Image showing England’s Lucy Bronze lifting the Euro 2025 trophy. Beside her are 6 different defensive metrics. In the circles is the average number of times a player performed this action during the whole tournament. Average includes all players who featured in the tournament. Top performers are: Alex Greenwood, Lucy Bronze, Jess Carter and Leah Williamson, highlighting the importance of England’s defensive unit during the tournament.
Coaching considerations
- How can we support our players to manage their emotions during stressful situations, such as taking the final penalty to win a shoot-out?
- What opportunities can we give to our players to ensure that they share equal game time and get opportunities to learn and express themselves?
- How do we encourage our players to continue with the team’s tactics and strategies, regardless of game state (winning, losing or drawing) or time of the match (first half, second half or extra time)?
- How can we ensure that our substitutes are ready to have an impact and be ‘game-changers’, like scoring a goal late on to win us a game?