Men’s football boom offers roadmap and warning for women’s game

Jill Scott didn’t sleep a wink. She sauntered off the Wembley pitch, went straight into what was – by all accounts – a long and messy night of celebrations, and then simply bowled out of the team hotel on Monday morning to join the victory parade in London. Perhaps, for a stalwart midfielder who had just tasted victory in her 10th and very possibly last international tournament, she was fearful that if she slept she might eventually have to wake up.

And for a glowing but hungover nation, there remains a certain surreal dreamlike quality to the events at Wembley Stadium on Sunday evening. The very fact of victory was startling enough: a first major international trophy for 56 years in either the men’s or the women’s game, clinched on the sweet green grass of home. The manner of victory was more startling still: a winning goal in the 110th minute against the eight-time champions Germany, a lead skilfully and cynically sequestered in the final minutes with a display of time-wasting and gamesmanship that proved beyond doubt that the English can shithouse with the very best.

For fans reared on generations of English heartache, the sight of a bold and confident national side striding to six consecutive wins (not even the men’s sides of 1966 or 2021 could boast that) was its own devastating statement.

From Manchester to Brighton, Southampton to Sheffield, England played like the best team in the tournament because they believed they were from the very start. Unlike their predecessors under Phil Neville and Mark Sampson, they took the field with a clear plan and a united purpose.

More satisfying still was the way they dealt with the rich variety of tests put in front of them: the technical possession football of Spain, the