GENEVA — If it weren’t for the crystal-blue lake and rugged mountains that sandwich the city, I’d have thought I was in London. In the 36 hours before England’s Women’s Euro semifinal match against Italy, downtown Geneva was crawling with English accents and white kits with leonine crests. The only thing more prevalent than England fans was the ample signage around the city promoting the tournament.
As I walked around, I began to wonder if, come match time, the stadium would be a sea of white, with nary an Italian fan in sight. I kept an eagle eye out for blue Italy jerseys, and found only enough to count on one hand. In fact, I spotted more German and Spanish kits than those for the Azzurre, and that semifinal is across the country. Even on game day, as I merged into the mass of fans streaming into the stadium, only specks of blue shone through the white.
Imagine my surprise, then, when exactly one hour before kickoff a sizable group of Italian fans had coalesced behind the goal closest to me and started singing raucously. It was before any player had even stepped onto the pitch to warm up, and it was stronger than any organized England song would be for the rest of the night. (Though the loudest cheer during the pre-match roster announcements came when Jess Carter’s name came over the loudspeakers. Carter didn’t start the match, but it was nice to see fans support her after she spoke out about the gross, and grossly predictable, racist abuse she’d received throughout the tournament.) I immediately understood that the Italian fan presence was going to feel a lot bigger than it was. When the Italian players came out to warm up, they made a point of recognizing the outsized passion of their fans, repeatedly waving over to them in gratitude. The Lionesses paid no such specific attention to fans—three-quarters of the stands are too much to adequately acknowledge.
The unequal fan presence reflects the very different circumstances of the two teams. England’s win at Euro 2021 (which, you may recall, happened in 2022) led to a boom in popularity for the team, which only grew after its run to the 2023 World Cup final. To boot, England’s Women’s Super League is one of the biggest, best, and best-funded women’s leagues in the world. Many of their players are major brands unto themselves; I was reminded of this every time I walked by a huge Alessia Russo ad for Adidas at my university gym in Canada, a country she has nothing to do with.
The Italian women, however, do not have the same success or structures of support. The last time they made a tournament semifinal was in 1997. A strong showing at the 2019 World Cup was followed by early exits at Euro 2021 and the 2023 World Cup. Italy’s domestic league, the Serie A Femminile, only professionalized in 2022. Perhaps this tournament will be the catalyst for women’s football in Italy to get the support it deserves, but on Tuesday night, its fans had to make up in enthusiasm what they lacked in numbers.
As the match began, it quickly became clear that Italy would be playing a defensive game. Their formation of five defenders was dogged in resisting England’s attacking onslaught. The downside, of course, to piling bodies in the back is that there are fewer players in threatening positions in the other direction. For most of the first half, the Italians squandered any lick of a chance they had. In their haste, the Azzurre made some almost comical offensive blunders. After one errant pass, I raised my hands in such exasperation that my Irish neighbor, who was with me on Team Chaos, chuckled and said, “You turned Italian there!” On the rare occasions that Italy could muster a workable pass, it was even rarer that a teammate had transcended their rather static formation to get on the end of it.
England, on the other hand, was patient—sometimes too patient—in its build-up. Since I’m in Switzerland, allow me the metaphor: The Lionesses played like the cogs of a watch, tick-tick-ticking through well-worn passing sequences and overlapping runs. The Azzurre did their best to lob wrenches into the Lionesses’ gears. The best chances were generated by Lauren Hemp, a menace down the left flank. Still, the game stayed goalless.
Perhaps I’m not giving the Italian players enough credit. They have profound individual quality. Many made evasive moves that astonished the crowd into oohs and aahs, so efficiently that they were already onto the next (often incomplete) pass before true appreciation could linger. The potential of their squad was apparent; the question was if they could coalesce as a team well enough to convert it into something real. For a brief, euphoric moment, that question was answered in the affirmative. When Sofia Cantore scooped up the ball, stitched together a beautiful one-two around her soon-to-be club teammate Esme Morgan, and sent a cross towards the edge of the six-yard box, veteran Barbara Bonansea deftly juggled it and hammered it home without letting it touch the ground. Finally, the Azzurre’s enthusiastic offense found structure, and they were up, 1-0, in the 33rd minute.
By the sound of it, the stadium had just broken open. Italian fans were singing and screaming, hugging and dancing. Maybe, just maybe, they could really pull it off.
England responded with more chances—a Russo-Hemp-Lauren James sequence that forced a great save from goalkeeper Laura Giuliani, and a dangerous but unsuccessful shross by Keira Walsh. Italy went into halftime with the lead and the tantalizingly real possibility of a stunning victory.
The second half started with more of the same: England threatening, Italy defending for its life and rarely posing a disturbance in attack. On some plays, it looked like the Azzurre were somehow afraid of scoring. The angle of my seat gave me a perfect view of the multiple yards Italian forwards left between themselves and England’s defensive line. Sure, getting called offside is never fun, but the rule is meant to be pushed to its limit. Risk is a necessary part of attacking, and Italy didn’t embrace that enough.
But they defended with tenacity, and 20 minutes into the half, the game was stagnant enough that an England fan behind me whined, “Sarina, subs!” Substitutes have been England’s lifeblood under manager Sarina Wiegman. She consistently withholds some of England’s top talent until the very end of matches, looking to unleash them against the opposition when they are at their most tired. The strategy has worked remarkably well, although the lateness with which it is employed has led to multiple bouts of exhausting extra time. I have a working theory that Wiegman made a deal with the devil: She can continue her streak of winning the Euros only if every England fan goes into cardiac arrest multiple times on the way to victory.
Wiegman withheld and withheld, and finally, in the 77th minute, Chloe Kelly entered the match to thunderous applause. Kelly is a bona fide super sub, who played out of her mind when put in a similar position against Sweden in the quarterfinals. Her presence energized England, but Italy took advantage of England’s temporary disorganization to make a genuinely threatening breakaway that ended with an off-target headed shot. Both teams, then, were gaining steam. They traded attempts as the second half inched towards a close. In the 85th minute, Wiegman replaced defender Leah Williamson with teen phenom Michelle Agyemang. Agyemang had equalized against Sweden in the quarterfinal—the future felt more unsure than ever with her on the pitch. To Italy’s credit, they kept pushing for the killing blow, forcing Hannah Hampton into difficult saves.
Cruelly, Italy’s audacity was punished at the death. With less than two minutes left of stoppage time, Lauren Hemp got the ball down the flank, jinked herself into some space, and crossed it into the box. Giuliani pushed it out of the frying pan, only for it to land in Agyemang’s fire. The teenager calmly controlled the ball and rifled it in. If the stadium felt like it had broken open upon Bonansea’s goal, it positively exploded for this.
From the opening whistle of extra time, the game was England’s to lose. They had tremendous momentum from Agyemang’s goal, and Italy was playing without their best attackers, who manager Andrea Soncin had subbed off in order to close things out in regulation. Hemp and Kelly both created great chances, but no one converted. The teams went into halftime of extra time at an impasse. In the 116th minute, Italy created a good opportunity but had no one running into it. Agyemang responded on the other side of the pitch with an arcing ball that hit the woodwork behind a helpless Giuliani.
Not a minute later, the unthinkable happened. I’d love to be able to say that I noticed exactly when Beth Mead fell, and that I felt either a great surge of anger or vindication when referee Ivana Martincic blew her whistle and pointed to the spot. But the truth is, I didn’t register the tackle at all. It didn’t stand out compared to so many others in the game that went unpunished. Throughout the match, the referee had erred on the side of leniency. Why the clash between Mead and Emma Severini was judged differently will be a question that haunts the Azzurre on their bitter trip home. After watching the replay, all I’ll say is that Martincic was lucky that the call came from the end opposite the Italy section.
It was fitting that Chloe Kelly stepped up to take the penalty. She’s England’s reliable hero, the one who won it all for them in 2022, the only one alongside Lucy Bronze to emerge from the embarrassing shootout in the Sweden game with her reputation burnished. It was also fitting that Giuliani saved it—how could this game, already so emblematic of how so many in this tournament have gone, go by without a missed penalty?
Every English fan I talked to in the hours leading up to the game had only confidence in their team. Upon hearing that I was rooting for a fun, chaotic game, they would say, “Oh, but we’re going to win.” How they maintained such conviction after a deeply inconsistent tournament, I’ll never understand, but I remain in awe of it. After all, they weren’t wrong. As it turns out, Giuliani’s save was just another obstacle for England to overcome on their road to victory. Kelly sprinted onto her own rebound and tapped it in. Euphoria for England, dejection for Italy.
As I was leaving the stadium, my head hurt from screaming and my ears were ringing from the volume of the crowd’s emotion. Others were not so pained. I passed two England fans in their 20s who were dancing as they waited in line for the bathroom. In their joy, one of them blindly kicked a woman walking by who looked about five decades older and a foot shorter than them. The woman, clad in an England flag, turned around with a startle. The younger women began to apologize profusely. The older fan didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and then, with a dance of her own, hands raised in triumph, offered an ecstatic cheer to her younger compatriots: “ENGLAND!”
