England vs Sweden penalties live: Lionesses count injuries after surviving drama to progress at Euro 2025

Italy next, and Lucy Bronze said: “Obviously on paper they’re ranked lower than us but for them they’ve got everything to win in that game, considering I think it’s their first ever Euros semi-final. You saw how much it meant to them yesterday getting through.

“Even against Spain I thought they did quite well, although the scoreline probably doesn’t look like it, and Spain are a top team. I’ve watched them throughout the tournament and they deserve to be in the semi-final. I don’t think we’ll take anything for granted after this game tonight so we have to be at our best if we want to be in the final.”

Sarina Wiegman reserved special praise for Lucy Bronze’s “resilience and fight” and said she had never before seen a player defy injury to score such an important penalty.

“Lucy Bronze is just one of a kind, I have never, ever seen this before in my life,” Wiegman said.

“I’m a very lucky person that I’ve worked with so many incredible people and incredible football players, and there are so, so many, but what she does and her mentality, and how she did that penalty and the goal, at the far post, she gets it in the net. But that’s not what defines her.

“What defines her is that resilience, that fight. I think the only way to get her off the pitch is in a wheelchair.”

Chloe Kelly walks up to the penalty spot as if she’s in her back garden. She stops. She pauses. She picks the ball up and spins it back onto the spot, as if no one is watching or waiting for the kick to keep England’s Euro defence alive, after three successive misses. So Kelly waits a little longer. She spins the ball back onto the spot three more times.

Kelly actually needs to pee. Some England players on the halfway line have lost track of the score as Kelly steps back. She locks eyes with goalkeeper Jennifer Falk and can’t help herself from grinning due to the sheer enormity of the moment. But Kelly sticks what what she knows: she lifts up her left leg, skips a little, and, with her right foot, effortlessly places the biggest penalty of her life into the corner.

After scoring the winning penalties against Nigeria and Brazil, Chloe Kelly once again stepped up for England in a shoot-out, this time scoring to keep the Lionesses in the tournament.

Sarina Wiegman admitted there were “three times” where she thought England were heading out of Euro 2025 before winning on penalties.

“What we can control is the team just fighting to get back into the game and that is what you can see. I think that’s a quality that is so strong in this team, that togetherness and fighting back. It shows so much resilience.

“Then we changed it and brought in other players like Michelle [Agyemang], Chloe [Kelly] and they brought different things to the game that really helped the team in that moment. Also, Sweden in that moment, had to adapt to some different things.

“That is so powerful from this team. That luck as well, yes, at least three times I thought we were out.”

Beth Mead, who was one of England’s triple-change on the hour but then missed her penalty in the shoot-out, attempts to sum up her emotions.

“I was quite emotional at the end of the game. I think I was frustrated not to execute my own penalty. I just said over there, I think I would back myself in them situations but we practice them every day. We try and do our routine. It doesn’t go to plan, but we as a team stuck together, we got behind each other and like Ella [Toone] said earlier, sometimes you need your goalkeeper to step up and Hannah did that today.”

England goalkeeper Hannah Hampton declared “proper England is back” after the defending champions booked their place in the Euro 2025 semi-finals with a dramatic 3-2 penalty win over Sweden.

“It shows proper England is back,” said Hampton, when asked about the Lionesses’ commitment to fight with everything they had – even at the expense of her own nose – after clawing their way back into the contest.

“We’re going in the right direction. I think you know that everyone would be putting their bodies on the line. Literally you could see that out there.”

“It wasn’t about me [tonight] and a game like that requires you to be at 100 per cent,” Williamson told BBC One. “It wasn’t the time to stay on the pitch, but I don’t know.”

England have successfully reached the semi-finals of Euro 2025 after surviving a penalty shoot-out against Sweden and coming from two goals down to continue their title defence.

The holders looked to be heading home but two goals in three minutes sparked a chaotic comeback before Hannah Hampton and Lucy Bronze were the heroes in the shoot-out.

After going through on penalties, England will play Italy in the semi-finals.

Italy were runners-up in Group B after beating Belgium, drawing with Portugal and losing to Spain, and stunned Norway in their quarter-final. Cristiana Girelli scored twice to send Italy through to their first semi-final in 28 years.

Their semi-final will be played on Tuesday 22 July with kick-off at 8pm BST (UK time). England will travel to Geneva for the first time, which is where Italy beat Norway on Wednesday night.

“She rolled her ankle. She’ll be assessed tomorrow,” Wiegman said in her press conference. “I don’t know what it is right now. She couldn’t stay on the pitch so we had to take her off.”

Lauren James and Lucy Bronze also appeared to be limping, after staying on for extra time but Wiegman alleviated any further concerns by suggesting it was just fatigue.

Bronze, though, had strapping around her left leg during the game and walked through the mixed zone area in Zurich with ice on her right thigh after playing through pain to score the decisive penalty in the shoot-out.