[Salopbaggie]

I’ve seen a number of reports and comments saying that the better team lost. Sorry but the better team always wins, that’s why they are the better team. Spain may have played football that some regarded as more pleasing to the eye but there are no trophies for that. England played some very good football, often on the counter attack, but they also played to other strengths of determination and doggedness, which should never be underestimated. I thought they were outstanding.
And if I hear another comment about the standard of women’s football compared to that of men’s football, I think I’ll scream. Trouble is, success such as this always brings out the trolling misogynists.

I had to come back on this as I am not sure why you quoted my post unless you are aiming those comments at me. If you are, I suggest you read my post again.

As someone who has watched every minute of every game, not only of these finals, but every qualifier, and in fact I don't remember missing one televised competitive Lioness's game, since I think the 2007 World Cup and that includes those on the more obscure channels and those televised on foreign channels and I agree with your assertion regarding trolling misogynists, however I still stand by my impression that this team were below par for this tournament.

If you disagree with my overall impression of the team performances in this tournament, perhaps you might agree with Leah Williamson, the Lioness's captain, who said just today in interview (29/7), "we made hard work of that". While I would agree, they were good in parts, I could not agree their performance was outstanding. I don't think it an exaggeration to say, they scrapped through several of their matches, granted as I suggested in my OP, winning each game is all you have to do to lift the trophy.

However, compare these games to the performances of the 2022 Euro finals, 22 goals for, 2 against or look at the quality of their performances in the 2023 WC, now they were outstanding. Some might even argue their 2019 performances in the WC when they got knocked out in the semi final were better than this tournament,

The important thing is this team did enough to lift the trophy and we should be celebrating that, a special mention for Lucy Bronze who seems to have always been there, she might be slowing down a bit, but to be fair I don't know of many players that would go out there and play the entire tournament with a fractured tibia, which she got back in June. And of course Brummie, Hannah Hampton who saved penalties galore, less known is she is an ambassador for Birmingham Children's hospital and that she had undergone 3 different surgeries there herself as an infant to try and fix Strabismus an eye condition which alters depth perception, I think safe to say the surgeries were successful.

COYB