Women's Euro 2025 Final: Hannah Hampton's heroics help Lionesses beat Spain on penalties, defend title

England beat Spain 3-1 on penalties to clinch the Women's Euro 2025 and defend their title after Sunday's final had finished 1-1 at the end of extra time. Chloe Kelly scored the decisive kick in a shoot-out which saw three Spain players, including reigning Ballon d'Or Aitana Bonmati, all missing from the spot. Mariona Caldentey had earlier gave Spain the lead-- who beat England 1-0 in the 2023 Women's World Cup final -- into the lead at St Jakob-Park in Basel, but Alessia Russo equalised early in the second half.

It seemed that Spain would be repeating their win against England in Sydney two years earlier as they controlled the game at Basel's St Jakob-Park and were ahead by Mariona Caldentey's first-half header.

England, however, did not panic as they had already been behind against Sweden in the quarter-finals and Italy in the semis before they managed to emerge victorious.

Sarina Wiegman's England are thus back-to-back European champions, their victory here three years on from when they beat Germany in extra time at Wembley to lift a first women's major trophy. Beating Spain here makes up for the pain of losing that World Cup final in 2023, and the win also secures Wiegman's position as one of the great coaches. She has now won three consecutive European Championships, having led her native Netherlands to victory in 2017 before doing the same with England three years ago.

Spain, meanwhile, fell short in their quest to add a maiden European Championship title to the World Cup they won in Australia. Spain controlled the possession as would be expected, but eventually paid the price for failing to put the match to bed against an England team who never know when they are beaten.

Wiegman's side had been 2-0 behind against Sweden in the quarter-finals before scoring twice to take the match into extra time as they went on to win on penalties. Then came Michelle Agyemang's 96th-minute equaliser robbed Italy in the semi-final in Geneva, when Kelly scored the winner in extra time.

England had actually not played all that well for much of their march to the final, but it did not matter.

Wiegman had gambled on the fitness of Lauren James and come out on top, but not quite as she intended -- having limped off with an ankle injury against Italy, the Chelsea winger did not make it to half-time and was substituted by Kelly.

By then Spain were already ahead, scoring when Bonmati and Athenea del Castillo played each other to tee up Ona Battle and her cross from the right was nodded in by Caldentey. Montse Tome's Spain, who had seven players from Barcelona in their starting team, had already dominated prior to that and it seemed England's best chance was that their opponents would be complacent.

The pick of that was when the game remained goalless, when Spain goalkeeper Cata Coll made a sloppy short pass to Laia Aleixandri in her own goal area. Lauren Hemp was quick to pounce on the chance but Coll was well alert to cover.

Even at 1-0, though, it seemed like England were very much in the match, and they pounced when the opportunity arose in the 57th minute when Kelly crossed from the left for her Arsenal teammate Russo to equalise. England -- with more supporters in their favour among the crowd of 34,203 -- now felt another comeback victory was in the offing, and it took the tips of Coll to keep out a Kelly attempt from the far corner midway through the second half.

Agyemang later replaced Russo, looking to repeat her super-sub stint, while Salma Paralluelo was one of those introduced for Spain. Paralluelo had herself in an encouraging situation on a few occasions as the match went into extra time and then to the edge-of-seat suspense of penalties.

Beth Mead's initial kick for England was saved after she was compelled to retake, and captain Leah Williamson also had her try blocked by Coll. But Alex Greenwood and Niamh Charles both found the net, while Patri Guijarro was the sole successful taker for Spain before Kelly came on to score the winning one.

For England, this was another night of history. A night when they refused to be beaten. Again.