I was there: England’s Euro 2025 glory was a surreal, almost psychedelic blur | OneFootball

Surreal. Utterly surreal. A home Euros in 2022 had provided wave after wave of emotion, England’s win at Wembley the culmination of decades of growth, setbacks, fight and deep longing. Everyone sang from the same hymn sheet for that maiden Euros win: the written press, broadcasters, fans, sponsors, Football Association, players and Sarina Wiegman and her staff. There were tears – lots. Having begun covering women’s football for the Guardian via a weekly column before the 2017 Euros, then gone full-time before the 2019 World Cup, I felt as if I had lived that progression, journeyed with them, contributed, in some small way, to that growth.

The 2025 edition was different, surreal, an almost psychedelic experience. In many ways better than 2022. This was England’s first major tournament win – male or female – away from home. Expectations were high but injuries, retirements and inconsistent performances and results had made most aware that a title defence wouldn’t be a procession. That made it all the more magnificent.

The vibe was different too. It wasn’t until the tournament was well under way in 2022 that the Lionesses swung into general public consciousness. This time, the wider public was on board from the off, invested in the retirements of Mary Earps and Fran Kirby, in the stepping back of Millie Bright and in the fitness of Georgia Stanway and the Laurens (James and Hemp).

England fans had travelled in such numbers that you were transported back to the feel of the grounds of 2022 and the first major tournament win away from home didn’t feels as if it took place on foreign soil.

Then, there was the football, which delivered the most thrilling and nail-biting ride, everyone rising and falling together in shared agony and ecstasy with each fightback, period of extra time and penalty shootout.

Try writing through those games. The late kick-offs, many 9pm local time, combined with the drama on the pitch made me feel as if I spent each match on a metaphorical tightrope, trying to write a match report that could be adapted for abject failure or epic turnaround in seconds.

It is hard to get across what it’s like covering a major tournament as a journalist. It is a weird all-consuming whirlwind of an experience. The schedule is erratic, fluid and unsociable. Around the work, you try to slot in experiences of the place you’re in but feel as if you’re just passing through. Mentally, I switched off by drawing moments from the tournament or patterns I’d seen and liked on to a piece of A4 lino, then cutting around them with the idea of creating a printable tapestry of the month.

Matchdays really mess with your body clock. I’ve always described the period up to two hours before kick-off as the calm before the storm. There isn’t much to do because the match will set the tone of the coverage. Anything published before will be out of date as soon as the whistle blows. Your working day begins predominately at 9pm, sometimes 6pm.

Then the full force of the storm hits and it rages until about an hour and a half after the match. Press conferences and player mixed zones mean not leaving stadiums until past 2am if extra time or penalties are involved. Then, you can’t wind down for hours, too wired to sleep having seen and experienced what you just have and having tried to convey it in 900-plus words.

It’s exhilarating and exhausting and, while maintaining a level of professional objectivity and impartiality, you bond with members of the squad and fellow journalists. It’s impossible not to when you spend so much of your time getting players to open up and reveal deep parts of themselves and their thoughts. We see the players at their best and their worst, after good individual performances and bad, with strapping or ice on their legs and grass and mud stains on their shirts, embracing their families in front of us, with heads bowed at times and with medals around their necks at others.

I couldn’t help but be hugely impressed when Jess Carter stopped in the mixed zone to talk to us so openly after she had a terrible time against France in England’s opening defeat. I felt humbled by Michelle Agyemang’s composure and thoughtfulness before the game against the Netherlands when the 19-year-old sat for an interview in a circle of significantly older journalists. I was in awe as Lucy Bronze limped to us in the mixed zone to reveal she had played the tournament on a broken leg.

The final is a blur. You are so locked into the work – report, interviews in the mixed zone, press conference, rewrite of the report, follow-up plans – that it’s hard to recall the details. What I remember most is the aftermath, the jugs and jugs of beer, the match replayed on giant screens in the pub that enabled a motley crew of journalists to watch it back as fans, cheering, chanting, drinking and eating pizza, as the bemused pub landlord looked on.

I’m still not sure what we witnessed in Switzerland. It was the most gritty, gutsy, chaotic of tournament runs and most unlikely way to reach silverware. Utterly unforgettable.

This article is the third in a series from our correspondents on the most memorable moments of 2025. Next: how the Red Roses won the Women’s Rugby World Cup

Header image: [Photograph: Harriet Lander/The FA/Getty Images]