Lionesses sink Sweden in shootout for semi-final slot

England win 3-2 on penalties in Zurich

- MIGUEL DELANEY

It’s an image that could go down in England folklore, albeit after a performance - bar maybe a total of three minutes - that won’t quite be written into history. Certainly not with any great affection. Following a series of absurd misses, in what might well have been one of the worst penalty shootouts in football history, a hobbling Lucy Bronze ripped off her strapping, and strode forward. An astonishing eight of the 12 previous penalties had been squandered. Some had been squandered in scarcely believable fashion, the emotional momentum of the shootout veering as wildly as some of the attempts. So, Bronze just smashed it straight into the roof of the net.

It was a decisiveness that had been missing from the previous 10 minutes, and most of the game. It also seemed to scramble Sweden one final time, as Smilla Holmberg became just the latest player to sky the ball.

This time, it was enough. Bronze’s force had driven England into the semifinals of Euro 2025.

They are somehow 90 minutes from another final, albeit after a display where they really only played for a few minutes.

The obvious discussion now will be over what this emotion does for the team, over the resolve, whether there will now be a momentum from this, a relief that releases them.

But, if we’re talking about elements like that, you just have to focus on the psychodrama of the penalties. It was unlike almost any witnessed in football history, and a rare occasion where the final score of the initial five each - 2-2 -equalled the actual game.

While Bronze ultimately seized the moment, it’s hard not to feel that Sweden ultimately — and calamitously - let it slip away. And that’s not just from the fact they were 2-0 up in the 79th minute —a fact that almost felt irrelevant given everything that happened after.