England against Germany at Wembley Stadium. A final that underlines the growing stature of women’s soccer in Europe and echoes decades of history.
When host nation England takes on Germany in the European Championship final on Sunday, it will have a tournament-record crowd of nearly 90,000. Euro 2022 as a whole will be easily the best-attended ever. It beat the previous mark of 240,000 part-way through the group stage.
“It’s going to be a great festival of football,” German coach
Martina Voss-Tecklenburg said on Wednesday.
“That’s a classic in soccer, England-Germany.” England is aiming to win its first major women’s tournament title on the site where the English men’s national team beat West Germany to win its only major title to date, the 1966 World Cup.
Germany has won all eight European finals it’s played — and crushed England 6-2 in the 2009 final — but its momentum had seemed to slow in recent years as other countries invested heavily in women’s leagues.