\n<\/p>\n
Chloe Kelly said England\u2019s saviour Michelle Agyemang has the \u201cworld at her feet\u201d after the 19-year-old striker\u2019s late leveller saved the defending champions in their nerve-jangling semi-final victory over Italy.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s remarkably late comeback, which saw Agyemang score in the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time before Kelly\u2019s winner in the penultimate minute of extra time, booked the Lionesses a place in their third consecutive major tournament final. They will face either Spain or Germany in Basel on Sunday, trying to defend the title they won in 2022.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig Mich at it again!\u201d Kelly said to ITV Sport, discussing Agyemang\u2019s third goal in four senior international games since her April debut. \u201cShe\u2019s unbelievable and she should have scored again: that one that hit the crossbar. She\u2019s an unbelievable player and she\u2019s got the world at her feet, a young player with a bright future and I\u2019m absolutely buzzing for her. But this team shows resilience again and we fight back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Agyemang, who also scored England\u2019s equaliser in their quarter-final win over Sweden, added to ITV: \u201cI\u2019m so proud of the team\u2019s fight and effort. It\u2019s the character, it\u2019s the strength of this team that has put us this far.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Arsenal player, who was a ballgirl at Wembley as recently as 2021, added: \u201cIt means the world to me. I\u2019m so grateful. Four years ago I was a kid just throwing a ball to some of these girls and now I\u2019m playing with them. It\u2019s a great opportunity and I\u2019m so happy I am here.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>Chloe Kelly races to congratulate Michelle Agyemang who is lying on the turf after England sealed their spot in the final.<\/span> Photograph: Jean-Christophe Bott\/AP<\/p>\n The England coach, Sarina Wiegman, who has now reached five consecutive major finals for a combination of the Netherlands and England, told BBC Radio 5 Live: \u201cWe\u2019re going to make a movie some day! Well, this is a movie, my goodness, it\u2019s unbelievable. Here we are again; it\u2019s really, really special.\u201d<\/p>\n Wiegman also had high praise for Agyemang, saying in her press conference: \u201cShe has something special. She\u2019s only 19 years old, she\u2019s very mature, she knows exactly what she has to do. When we have to go to her as a target player, she keeps the ball really well. Even when you saw her hit the crossbar, that was not just a shot, she was aiming for it. If she continues like this she has a very bright future.\u201d<\/p>\n The England midfielder Ella Toone joked that it was \u201cworth the stress\u201d, adding: \u201cWe grafted and got the goal we needed at the end. Buzzing, we\u2019re in another final. You always believe it [the moment will come]. We\u2019re England, we fight to the end.\u201d<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Sign up to Moving the Goalposts<\/span><\/p>\n No topic is too small or too big for us to cover as we deliver a twice-weekly roundup of the wonderful world of women\u2019s football<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Italy sank to the floor at full time. Their head coach, Andrea Soncin, said: \u201cOf course this defeat hurts but we have to be proud. The players have deserved a different end. Unfortunately it happens sometimes that you don\u2019t get what you deserve. This is a bitter defeat because we were one minute away from the final.\u201d<\/p>\n The match was played two days after the England defender Jess Carter revealed she had received what the England team described as poisonous racist abuse on social media. The Lionesses said they were not going to take the knee. Instead, the substitutes stood arm-in-arm on the touchline before kick-off, including Kelly, who said: \u201cI\u2019m so proud to stand side-by-side with the girls in this team; Jess Carter and every single player in this team.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it was a special and powerful moment for us, to show that this [racism] is not what we accept, not in society, not in sport, and there needs to be more done to make sure this isn\u2019t happening over and over again. It\u2019s disappointing to see that, sometimes, winning masks racism. It has no place in our sport and no place in society too.\u201d<\/p>\n King Charles offered a message of congratulations. After praising the Lionesses\u2019 skill and determination, and how they \u201cinspire girls and women across the nation\u201d, he wrote: \u201cGood luck, England. May you roar to victory once more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Chloe Kelly said England\u2019s saviour Michelle Agyemang has the \u201cworld at her feet\u201d after the 19-year-old striker\u2019s late leveller saved the defending champions in their nerve-jangling semi-final victory over Italy. England\u2019s remarkably late comeback, which saw Agyemang score in the sixth minute of second-half stoppage time before Kelly\u2019s winner in the penultimate minute of extra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11787,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[5274,4298,2456,1904,5275,5276,2888,4426,5273,1214,550],"class_list":{"0":"post-11786","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-agyemang","9":"tag-chloe","10":"tag-englands","11":"tag-euro","12":"tag-feet","13":"tag-insists","14":"tag-kelly","15":"tag-michelle","16":"tag-saviour","17":"tag-womens","18":"tag-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}