Fans dare to dream: pride of Lionesses could bring a long legacy

Chelsea’s Sam Kerr called it “lit” . The Conservative MP Tracey Crouch called it “pure filth” (in a good way).

- Paul MacInnes

 If you’re looking for a stand out moment in a breakthrough tournament, Alessia Russo ’s backheeled nutmeg of a goal – the third for England against Sweden on Tuesday night – is not a bad place to start.

Russo, the Lionesses’ super-sub, has scored four goals in the women’s European Championship to date. This was of a different order, a fierce shot saved by the Swedish keeper, Hedvig Lindahl , had seen the ball apparently squared offby two defenders only for the 23-year-old to slam her heel through it, and through two sets of legs, into the net.

Edited with added hip-hop commentary – “I take the ball, shoot, I miss it … sike, I swished it!” – Russo’s impudent strike has been viewed more than 900,000 times on BBC Sport’s TikTok account. On Twitter, the figure is more than 2m.

Meanwhile, in more traditional media settings, the BBC reports a figure of 9.3m viewers watching the game on BBC One (that goes up another 2m when you add online streams). This contrasts with a peak audience of 980,000 viewers watching England play India at Twenty20 cricket on BBC Two last weekend.