England turn on the style to rout Sweden and seal place in Euro 2022 final

The Lionesses roared into a first major tournament final since 2009 with a scintillating 4-0 unpicking of Europe’s highest-ranked team, Sweden.

England have not reached a major final since their 6-2 defeat by Germany in Helsinki at Euro 2009 and the team’s electric and terrier-like midfield trio of Fran Kirby, Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh took half an hour before they worked out how to shrug off some physical and snappy marking to keep the crowd of 28,624 on edge. But Beth Mead’s sixth goal of the tournament lifted the pressure of the occasion before a Lucy Bronze header, an outrageous backheel from Alessia Russo and a Kirby chip booked the team a place in the final at Wembley on Sunday in style.

Sweden fans had been waiting expectantly for their players to click at this European Championship. Bar a 5-0 drubbing of Portugal, the team that was called up in place of Russia, the Scandinavian side have looked a shadow of the team that humbled England in the bronze-medal match at the World Cup in 2019 and were a penalty kick away from Olympic gold in Tokyo last summer.

But anyone writing off Sweden would have been naive to do so. Because while they haven’t looked their best, Sweden’s rare struggles in recent years have come against teams that have sat back. A 92nd-minute winner against Belgium spared them an embarrassing quarter-final exit to relative European minnows – but in England, they were handed a semi-final opponent far better suited to the way they play.

“We’re going to leave everything on the pitch, every drop of sweat,” warned the returning Kosovare Asllani, who had recovered from Covid. “England have played some fantastic football in this tournament so far but at the same time we feel like that it is a game