England And Germany Play Out Ferocious, Record-Breaking UEFA Women’s Euro Final

At the end of a month of headline-grabbing sport, the UEFA Women’s Euro ended with a suitably thrilling final between England defeated Germany 2-1 after extra time at a sold-out Wembley Stadium where an attendance of 87,192 shattered yet more records for women’s sport.

Manchester City’s Chloe Kelly scored the 111th-minute winner at the end of a season in which she completed a long rehabilitation from an anterior cruciate ligament injury sustained in May 2021 which forced her to miss last summer’s Olympic Games and meant she did not figure in England’s plans until the eve of the tournament.

In the pre-match press conference, England coach Sarina Wiegman had talked about the German’s physicality and after their opponents were deprived of the services of their captain and top scorer, Alexandra Popp due to a muscle injury sustained in the warm-up, both sides went at each other a force which bordered on the limits of recklessness as five yellow cards were produced before a goal was scored.

Ella Toone, one of the heroes of the quarter-final victory over Spain, came on and opened the scoring shortly after the hour with a sublime chip racing onto a through-ball from deep. The goal came against the general run of play and it was no more than Germany deserved when Lina Magull steered home an equalizer after a well-worked move down the right.

At the end of a tournament which started with a record-breaking attendance for the competition at Old Trafford, the expectation always has that a new high watermark for the women’s game would be set when the final was played at a Wembley Stadium sold-out months before the tournament began. For all of those ticket-holders to attend, the competition organizers were relying on a glamour final and the meeting of the hosts and the eight-time champions, Germany, fit the bill perfectly.

The previous record for a women’s international match played in Europe was set ten years ago at the same stadium when the 80,203 watch the women’s Olympic Football Final between the United States and Japan. Today’s attendance surpassed that and remarkably is the highest for any European Championship finals match played by either men or women. The previous record was set back in 1964 when 79,115 spectators attended the men’s European Championship final between Spain and the Soviet Union.

Remarkably, today’s crowd is only the third-largest at a women’s match at the culmination of a staggering season for the game. Twice in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, FC Barcelona sold out their home stadium, the biggest in Europe generating successive record attendances of 91,553 and 91,648 for matches against Real Madrid and VfL Wolfsburg.

The UEFA Women’s Euro ended with an aggregate attendance of 574,865 over the course of 31 matches played around England, more than double the previous edition in the Netherlands in 2017. The average attendance of 18,544 fell just short of UEFA’s pre-tournament aim of 20,000 per game but as their President Aleksander Ceferin admitted speaking before the final, UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 will be a tough act to follow claiming “the bar is very high and it’s tough for the next host. We still don’t know who the next host will be but to match these numbers will not be easy. We all have to work in that direction.”