Meant to be

England's victory in Euro 2025 was one of the most ludicrous tournament wins in history. It may not have been pre-ordained but does it matter it felt that way?

Destiny doesn’t exist. Nobody’s name is actually on the cup. Except that sometimes it seems that it is and that can have a profound effect. England’s success at the women’s Euros was preposterous. Over the six hours of their three knockout ties at the Euros, England were ahead for just 67 seconds (plus around half of the four minutes of injury-time against Italy) and behind for 177 minutes. They only converted six of the 13 penalties (12 in shoot-outs) they took. And yet they won the tournament. It may have been a heist but, by the end, it was one that felt entirely reasonable.

A belief that somehow your team has been chosen by a higher power to be victorious can cut two ways. It can lead to complacency, to a failure to stiffen the sinews and rectify faults. The more interviews that were given that followed the tone of “Oh, what are we like? We like to make it hard for ourselves,” the more it felt that England might have slipped into that bracket. But there are also times when a belief in your own destiny can be a necessary driver to stiffen the sinews, can carry a team over their faults, instil a self-belief.

And as Spain missed chance after chance in extra-time, as even Aitana Bonmati began making bad decisions, it became apparent that Spain had felt the power of England’s self-belief, had come to believe themselves doomed. Even when Beth Mead, having been forced to retake the opening penalty after a slip led to a double-contact, missed from the spot, Spain never gave the impression they believed they would win. Chloe Kelly was then the perfect person to finish it off, not only because she got the winner in the final three years ago and the winner in the semi-final, but because she had the requisite narrative arc, having lost her place at Manchester City and then been dropped by England earlier in the year.

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My history of the World Cup, The Power and the Glory, is out in September. Order here. Or, for those who dislike Amazon, here.

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This happens in tournaments. Two years ago, Ivory Coast had essentially been knocked out of the Cup of Nations on home soil. They’d lost 1-0 to Nigeria and 4-0 to Equatorial Guinea. It turned out that if Ghana had beaten Mozambique they’d have gone out, and after 90 minutes they led 2-0. But Mozambique scored twice in injury-time which meant that, when Morocco beat Zambia, Ivory Coast went through as a best third-place team.

Ivorian fans took to referring to their team as “les revenants” – the returners, the zombies. Having survived death once, it came to seem as though they couldn’t be killed. Ivory Coast replaced their manager after the group stage then scored an 86th-miniute equaliser before beating the champions Senegal on penalties. Down to ten men before half-time, they fell behind against Mali, equalised in the 90th minute and scored a winner in the 120th in the quarter-final. A victory over DR Congo in the semi before coming from behind to beat Nigeria in the final came to feel almost mundane by comparison.

Or look at Real Madrid in the Champions League in 2021-22. Two goals down with half an hour remaining against Paris Saint-Germain in the last 16, they scored three times. 4-3 down to Chelsea in the quarter-final, they equalised with 10 minutes to go and won in extra-time. Two goals behind after 89 minutes of the second leg of the semi-final against Manchester City, they scored twice in a minute and won in extra-time.

Or take Guus Hiddink’s PSV as they won the European Cup in 1987-88, despite winning only three of the nine games they played and drawing the last five. Sometimes teams win tournaments in bizarre and freakish ways. Sometimes that is down to luck. But sometimes there is something else going on.

PSV were defensively extremely solid that season. In their final six games they conceded only twice. That didn’t guarantee victory of course, not when they only scored twice in their final five games, but it did put them in a position whereby they could win on away goals and on penalties.

Real Madrid would never have planned to win the Champions League in the way they did, and playing like that could never be sustained, but self-assurance meant they never panicked and that tranquillity of mind allowed their great players to produce great moments when they were necessary. And, as with Manchester United when they won the Treble, the more they pulled off late comebacks, they more they believed they could pull off late comebacks, and the more their opponents believed they would pull off a late comeback.

And although Ivory Coast went through agonies in the group stage, it was – paradoxically – the shambolic nature of their performances that led to the sense that they could not be eliminated. They’d already experienced the worst, and that meant they had nothing to fear.

England at the Euros must have gone through something similar. Poor against France, they restored self-confidence with comfortably wins over a disappointing Netherlands and a Wales side who were never at their level. The praise they got for those two games felt disproportionate, a failure to recognise just how poorly their opponents had performed – and the desperate first half against Sweden, who pressed them as France had done and in a way the Dutch and the Welsh could not, was perhaps a consequence. But those games were necessary to get through and to get them scoring. And after Sweden and the absurd penalty shoot-out, suddenly anything felt possible.

Even Sarina Wiegman seemed a little baffled by how England had won. But it’s one of football’s enduring joys that while the better the planning and the organisation, the better a team is likely to do – would England have won the two shoot-outs without Wiegman’s planning? – other forces sometimes seem to take over.

Destiny doesn’t exist. It doesn’t determine who wins football matches or tournaments. But sometimes a belief in it does.