Chloe Kelly scored the winning penalty to help England Women produce one of the narrow football scores of the weekend in the Finalissima. Toone’s 23rd-minute strike appeared to have won the game in front of nearly 83,000 fans at Wembley, but a mishandled save by Mary Earps allowed Andressa Alves to slot home with only minutes remaining, sending the game to penalties. Tamires and Brazil captain Rafaelle Souza both missed penalties, as did England’s Toone, but Euro 2022-winning goalscorer Kelly did it again for the Lionesses, coolly sealing the winning penalty. England is now 30 games unbeaten under Sarina Wiegman, and they won their first penalty shootout, adding the Finalissima to their Euro 2022 and Arnold Clark Cup championships.
“We said, ‘We have a job here,’ and we were ready. We had a lot of practice before the Euros, and we understood what we were doing. Now we had to put it into action,” England head coach Sarina Wiegman said. “We formed a circle and discussed the sequence in which we would take them, and the players performed admirably, as did Mary (Earps). It demonstrates the team’s resilience; we know the next step, and we can’t undo what happened, therefore you must move on. That they did brilliantly.”
Both teams got off to a poor start, but England came out on top. With a strong strike from range, Lucy Bronze forced a stunning stop from Lele early on. Then Geyse had Brazil’s first shot of the game, but Jess Carter saved it. However, England gained a merited lead in the 22nd minute. Bronze made a brilliant run down the left flank before cutting the ball back for an unmarked Toone. The Manchester United striker then finished low and powerfully for another Wembley goal.
Soon after, England thought they had added a second goal, but Lauren James’ well-taken shot was correctly called offside. Tamires was also warned after Earps palmed her effort away. Lele also had to be on the lookout for late-first-half shots from Lauren Hemp and Alessia Russo. Brazil switched to a 4-2-3-1 shape at halftime and dominated the first 20 minutes of the second quarter. An unmarked Andressa made a terrible contract with a Geyse cross just before the hour, bobbling the ball wide.
Earps was then called upon to make a spectacular save on Geyse’s thunderbolt of a shot. With one hand, the England No. 1 leaped acrobatically to palm the ball onto the top of the crossbar and behind for a corner. England survived Brazil’s assault, with Georgia Stanway making a wonderful save from Lele midway through the second half, but a late mistake from Earps allowed Andressa to slide the ball home from close range. It sent the game straight to a penalty shootout, Wiegman’s first of its sort. But the Lionesses rose to the occasion, with Stanway, Rachel Daly, and Alex Greenwood all scoring before Kelly stroked home the game-winning penalty.
“Once again, a great environment. That will never be my norm. I thought it was a wonderful game with two distinct phases, the first and second halves. Excellent education. We’ve learned a lot in preparation for the World Cup. The learning aspect is good, but we also wanted to win this one,” Wiegman added. “Brazil used two distinct forms. We played pretty well in the first half. We should have scored a couple more goals, in my opinion. Brazil then converted to a 4-4-2 formation because that’s what they’re used to. They pressed much harder, and we had a lot of difficulties breaking out of their press. That was difficult, but it was necessary.”
“What a challenge. That, in retrospect, was excellent planning. You obviously want them to win the game, but having that pressure means a lot to these players,” Faye White said. “I expected Leah Williamson to be one of the penalty takers, but when you look at the names, we have a lot of good penalty takers. It means a lot to them. This squad has overcome every obstacle that has been thrown in their path. In the second period, a different Brazil emerged, and it took them a time to adjust, but if you’d just won the World Cup on penalties, that would give you a lot of confidence.”
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