Ella Toone: Back-to-back European Championships would be a 'dream'

Ella Toone said a back-to-back European Championship victory would be a dream as she prepares to face Spain in the final showdown in Basel on Sunday.

The 25-year-old scored the opener in the Lionesses’ 2-1 victory at Wembley in 2022 as they won their first major tournament trophy, and they could repeat the feat just three years later.

They face a rematch of their World Cup final defeat in 2023 as they lost 1-0 to Spain in Australia, and now they are aiming to avenge that with victory at St. Jakob Park.

“[Back-to-back champions] is the dream. That’s the aim. You want to come into a tournament, and you want to put on performances,” said Toone.

“You want to make the country proud, and you want to inspire a generation and those were our aims for the tournament.

“We’ve got all this way, so we want to go out into the game and give it everything. No one wants to lose a football match, especially a final, so we’ll do everything we can to put on a performance.

“We’ll fight, we’ll believe in ourselves, we’ll have that togetherness like we always do, so we will hopefully get over the line.”

England’s route to the final has been far from straightforward with their quarter-finals and semi-finals both requiring extra time, and in the former, penalties, to decide them.

It has led to tense viewing for fans and family of the Lionesses alike. Against Sweden, Michelle Agyemang’s late equaliser saw England recover from a two-goal deficit to take the game to penalties.

Then in Geneva against Italy, Agyemang once more popped up to take the game to extra-time where Chloe Kelly struck the winner to send England to the final.

“It’s mad. I’m not all for the drama but we’ve definitely made it dramatic this tournament. Sometimes football’s not