“We showed the resilience of a proper England team,” says Alex Greenwood after win against Italy | OneFootball

“We showed the resilience of a proper England team,” says Alex Greenwood after win against Italy | OneFootball

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·23 juillet 2025

“We showed the resilience of a proper England team,” says Alex Greenwood after win against Italy

Image de l'article :“We showed the resilience of a proper England team,” says Alex Greenwood after win against Italy

In her sixth major tournament with England, Alex Greenwood spoke on her feeling that she was part of a “proper England team” ahead of a third consecutive major tournament final.

The Lionesses left it late not once but twice to defeat a stubborn Italy team, with Michelle Agyemang equalising right at the end of regular time and Chloe Kelly scoring the winning goal in the closing stages of extra-time. For Greenwood, it was all a lot to fathom.


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“It’s actually chaos. I can’t [explain it] right now,” she admitted. “I’m going to need a little bit of time to process that. I mean fair play to us. I don’t know how late the goal was, but I know it was probably one of the last kicks of the game. It shows so much character. Fair play to the girls again who have come on the pitch and made a massive difference. I’m really proud.

“I am [incredibly proud to have made it to another final]. Oh, I am. I don’t think I can describe the tournament. It’s been crazy. The standards have got so high and the expectation on England is to always to reach a semi or a final and we’ve delivered again.”

As for the manner of the performance which have brought them to this stage, Greenwood was honest in her reflection of a tournament in which her side have, at times, flattered to deceive.

“Listen, there’s been times where we’ve made hard work of it, but I think we showed the resilience of a proper England team. We’ll fight all the way to the last second and we’ve got our rewards for that today,” she said.

“I’ve played this game long enough to know how to recover from games, but it’s going to be crucial from now until Sunday. I think the biggest message is recovery. We’ll do that properly. We’ve got a fantastic support network and the staff, they work so hard to make sure we’re ready for every game. The girls are in a Euro final on Sunday and we’ll make sure we do everything we can to be ready for that.”

With an attendance of over 26,000 for their game against Italy, England fans have certainly made their presence in Switzerland known. For this, Greenwood was full of praise.

“The crowd in general, our fans are incredible. I’m just not embedded in celebrating with your family. I think the older I’ve got, the more experience, is to enjoy these moments, a little bit more with them [her family]. Without them, I’m not here today, so I’m going to go there now and enjoy it with them,” she said.

“When we drove in on the bus, it was just England fans everywhere. They’re incredible. So glad that they are ours.”

This is her sixth major tournament, but for Greenwood, all are totally unique.

“I can’t compare the tournaments, to be honest,” she said. “I’ve just literally said in there [the changing room], I said to Aggie [Beever-Jones]: ‘this is your first tournament and this is my sixth’. You can’t compare any of them. Right now, I can’t even think about ’22, ’23. I just can only process this one. It’s going to take me a while to process this one, but right now, I think the focus is probably like you just said and go get ready for Sunday.”

On Agyemang and Kelly, the game’s super subs, she heaped on more acclaim.

“I mean, two players to come on: Michelle [Agyemang] was so good when she came on. She caused them so many problems and then Chloe [Kelly] goes and scores the rebound from the penalty. That takes a lot of courage to step up to take that. I asked her, she had no doubt in her mind, she was confident enough to take it,” Greenwood recalled.

She further explained: “all of our penalty takers were off. So who was left was probably me or Chloe [Kelly]. I missed the pen in the game, in the shootout [against Sweden], Chloe scored hers comfortably, so they [Sarina Wiegman and her staff] said: ‘it’s up to you, you or Chloe.’ I asked her [Kelly], I looked at her and said: ‘what do you think?’ She said: ‘I’m confident.’ That’s enough for me. I don’t need to ask her again. She’s confident enough to take it, so she did.”

Greenwood also touched on the years she spent playing with Kelly at Manchester City and the admiration she holds for her former teammate.

“She’s great. She’s brilliant. I mean, she came on, she caused them massive problems, she did the other day. She scores a penalty. The way she carries herself off the pitch, I’ve not got enough good words to say about her.”

England will face either Spain or Germany in the final of Euro 2025 at St. Jakob-Park in Basel on Sunday July 27th. It will be a repeat of either the Euro 2022 final against Germany or the 2023 World Cup final against Spain.

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