Lionesses celebrate back-to-back Euro titles and show how far women’s game has come in England in three years

London – Another day, a different time for these lion ribbons that would hardly have been conceivable for their ancestors. The Back-to-Back Champions of Europe had their crowned foreign soil won-soil team of England once that once achieved such an achievement and perhaps it might have been forgiven to underestimate the scale of affection for their home. They cannot be illusions now. Football had returned home and 65,000 waited for the shopping center to greet it.

Fans had understood their way of the furthest pieces of England, from Northumberland, Cornwall and everywhere in between between 36 hours, the pure part all the more remarkable given that Prime Minister Keir Starmer did not leave a negligent negligence on the party holiday that he had led so vocally on the height of someone else’s trophies for a stuff.

This was a team that attracted the attention of millions. Their semi -final triumph about Italy had been the most viewed program in the second largest broadcaster in the country. The final had encouraged 16 million viewers in the UK, a third more than their triumph on a home floor three years earlier. Now just a bit of those they had welcomed – still enough to fill almost every club field in England – came out to celebrate one of the largest football performance in the country.

Congricted at the bottom of Trafalgar Square in two open top red buses, the players had all the time they were needed to process the depth of the affection for them. It seemed like an impossible task.

“I cried all the way through the mall,” said Captain Leah Williamson. “This is incredible, probably one of the best things we are part of.”

The enormous crowd only grew further after the players had made the journey to a stage for the Queen Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace, flushing thousands along Pall Mall and Piccadilly as tourists who usually have looked at the course of these parts in the summer in a bewilder way. Maybe they had expected a different kind of England fan.

This was certainly nothing like the (sometimes inaccurate) stereotype of a men’s fan of England. Hulde to the champions was a family affair, strewn along the route were young children with Williamson, Chloe Kelly and Alessia Russo England shirts, quite a few arsenal and Chelsea Jerseys also strewn. “I saw older people, younger people, people from every other walk of life,” said Niamh Charles. “They were just so happy to be there and it was so wonderful to be able to share this with them. It is for them, so it was so special to see the faces of people.”

The most clear of all was the cross of St. George, an often charged symbol of recent English history, who wrapped the shoulders of old and young without without A hint of the statement that seems to follow differently everywhere. Since Euro 2020, every team of England has become in the mills of the cultural wars. Not this time. Debates about the merits of women’s football are largely limited to the crazy edge of social media. Kelly’s winner against Germany three years ago was rocket fuel for the popularity of the women’s game, which packs the Emirates Stadium, Stamford Bridge and Wembley. In the meantime, the access to the priority of the Grassroots on football pitches for women and girls must have more than doubled, the government announced after organizing Wiegman’s side in Downing Street on Monday.

Yet there is more going on than just what the English team has done for the sport. This is a story about the bond between a team and those they represent. Since the summer of 2022, the English audience has met the Sarina Wiegman team much better and, well, they really like them very much.

Kelly swears on TV during the day, because how can you describe the experience differently, but “So F — ING Special”? Everyone wants a friendship dynamic such as Russo and Ella Toone? This team just seems like a lot of fun, a group that is particularly representative of the young England, just as steeped in meme culture as the neuroses of the home country of football, which Brenda from Bristol in triumph canalizes. “You are kidding, not another?”

For more than three weeks in Switzerland, England won a large number of new admirers, not only because of the fact that they won, but also the way they did. They refused to admit two goals in the quarterfinals. When the waves of the Spanish pressure were on them, they held it. A tournament that started in what looked like a disaster ended with a triumph that the lion ribbons never doubted.

Their triumph, as Williamson said, was ‘hard’. Now their supporters were determined to give them the worship they deserved. Wiegman certainly did not seem to complain when Burna Boy entered the stage to her seranade and a 55-year-old former physical teacher who is for my hand, certainly intended for the National Meme Library.

The celebrations rolled well after what was supposed to be the closing time, but the thoughts of England already turned to what the next is. “Thank you very much that you are with us, stay with us,” said Williamson. “This has not been done yet.” If you think these scenes were something special, imagine what it will be like if England returns from Brazil for two years, hence with the biggest trophy of all.