The comeback queens: Can England’s Lionesses win the Euros?

0:02Hi, I'm Charlie Duffield and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up later in the show, the hot vicar of Notting Hill wants you to join his church. But first, England's Never Say Die Lionesses are Euro 2025 finalists after two last gasp goals in last night's semi-final game against Italy. Previously, the team beat Sweden on penalties in the quarterfinal. Here are fans reacting to the moment England secured victory.

0:56The Lionesses looked to be heading out of the Euro 2025 tournament, as they trailed Italy 1-0 with only one minute remaining of added time in Tuesday's semi-final. But then 19-year-old striker Adjuman scored in the 96th minute to take the game to extra time before Kelly sealed the victory by driving home the rebound from her saved penalty. Here's England boss Serena Weigman speaking after the game. I have many emotions again. I'm feeling relieved, I'm feeling happy. it feels a bit surreal making a final again but we're here and we're going to the final so we need to recover a bit but we know with the players we have in the squad and if we change a bit and we bring more players up front that we can always score a goal because we've shown that multiple times and we had to wait a little bit longer for it now but at the end we did so then we got extra time and yeah we got that penalty we were a bit lucky of course that we could score it in the second stage but yeah we're through the team will play the winner of Wednesday's semi-final tie between Euro 2022 runners-up Germany who they beat three years ago and world champions Spain in Basel on Sunday at 5 p.m.

2:22the Lionesses are now in a third major final in a row the first time a senior England men's or women's side have achieved the feat, having only reached finals in two of their first 13 appearances in such tournaments beforehand. But can they go the distance and win the championship? Joining us now is the standard sports writer Dom Smith. Dom, why are the Lionesses being called the comeback queens? I think it's been a very impressive show of resilience really the last two rounds. They got through the group stage having won two matches and lost their opening match to France. And then of course they're into the knockout stages, but the quarterfinal win against Sweden and last night's semi-final win against Italy, really following the same kind of attack in that England were desperately chasing the match, looking for an equaliser, found it and took the match to extra time when they then showed that they have more than their opponents.

3:18It took all the way to penalties against Sweden, not quite so far last night, with a late goal from Chloe Kelly winning the match for England. But again, they were so close to going out. Can you tell me more about the match? What were the standout performances? We were two minutes, I think, of stoppage time, injury time left, before Italy were going to be celebrating their place in the final at England's expense. But the substitute, Michelle Adjiamang, scored the equaliser that took the match to extra time, just as she did against Sweden. And from there, England had, I think, too much for Italy really, and made the final instead.

3:52It was quite impressive that Italy were even in this semi-final, to be honest. They're 13th in the world. This would have been their first appearance at a final of a major tournament since 1997, if they knocked out England. And they very, very nearly did. But England are the defending champions of the Euros, having won it on home soil in 2022 and are a better team. And although this was another frustrating and quite ugly performance from England, they did just have enough to turn it around and ultimately get through. I think Adjaman, who scored the equalising goal, definitely deserves mention.

4:27She wasn't even in the minds of England fans as a player who might go to this tournament as recently as April. That was when she made her debut for England and scored 40 seconds into the game on her debut against Belgium. She scored the equaliser against Sweden in the last round that took England to extra time. That was after coming on from the bench and she came off the bench again to good effect again by scoring with, as I say, two minutes left of the match. So she is the inspirational star for England, really. Only 19 years of age, an amazing story that she's had such an impact on the match.

5:02I think quite a lot of England's more senior players endured quite a difficult night again. But another mention should go to Chloe Kelly, winger who scored England's winning goal last night. I think many England fans might have wanted her to come on a little bit sooner, actually. She only came on in the 77th minute, but once she did, she made an immediate impact. And although her late penalty was saved in extra time, she reacted fastest to run in and score the rebound. And that rebound goal proved enough for England to make the final. How do you rate the Lionesses' performance in previous games?

5:34Well, up and down, to be completely honest. They began their campaign by playing against France, who are one of the best teams in the world, albeit they are now out. France beat England and absolutely deserved it as well. Then England recovered and thrashed the Netherlands 4-0, which was an amazing result, and Sweden 6-1. That was evidence that England were really turning it around. And then these last two matches have just been kind of scrapey, tight, fraught knockout matches, the sort of matches you do have to ultimately come through if you want to win a World Cup or Euros. Although England might have expected it to be a little bit simpler against Italy than it maybe was, I think it does great things for resilience if you are minutes away from going out of a tournament.

6:16And then ultimately it's you who makes the final in place of the opposition, as happened for England. So, yeah, quite difficult for me to say whether England have been consistently good or consistently poor. I think it's been a bit of both, really. But the fact of the matter is they're in the final. They're the only team at the moment who are in the final. And we'll see tonight when Spain play Germany who they will be facing in Sunday's final. And do they have what it takes to win the final? It's going to go up another notch now or another couple of notches. Spain are the current World Cup winners and I think the favourites for most teams, for most people to win this tournament.

6:50So if Spain makes the final instead of Germany, then that would make England, I think, probably underdogs just about, even though it's England who are the defending champions. And then if it's Germany who managed to overcome Spain, then I think maybe England would be marginal favourites, but it would be a pretty close game either way. And I think whether it's Germany or Spain, that's a pretty difficult test for England. So they are not going to get away with some of the poorer performances that they've shown in the last couple of games. I know they've won them against Sweden and Italy, but it's not been vintage England.

7:21And I think we're going to need to see vintage England if they're going to have any chance of defending their European crown. Let's go to a break. Coming up in part two, the spiritual leader behind a new brand of Christianity. We'll see you back here in just a moment.

7:48Welcome back. Now we may be living in an age of spiritual seeking woo woo, but it turns out that more young people are actually turning to religion to provide meaning in life. Apparently 16 % of 18 to 24 year olds go to church at least once a month, up from just 4 % in 2018. And one particularly handsome Church of England vicar in London is doing his best to convert people to the glory of God. Pat Allerton is a multi-platform priest. He's on Instagram under The Portable Priest, TikTok, and you can even read his new book, A Pocketful of Hope, which is a bit like the Bible for dummies. He also presents Britain's Great Cathedrals on Channel 5.

8:36Day to day, you'll find him preaching outside Notting Hill Gate station and here he is several years ago speaking about how he discovered his faith. I guess I just got on with life and up until I was 17, 18 I just had no bigger questions about life but then they all started piling in at once like why are we here? Where do we come from? What happens when we die? Is there a God? I began thinking there's got to be more to life and I prayed a prayer to the ceiling saying God I don't know you yet but I think you're there and in that moment all I can describe it as is it just felt like this wave of love this sort of electricity filled my being.

9:15Joining us now is Will Hosey lifestyle editor of Country Life magazine and a contributor to The Standard who met the hot vicar of Notting Hill himself. So tell me more about Pat Allerton. So Pat Allerton is the vicar of St Peter's Church in Notting Hill. For Londoners listening, that's the sort of oak-ish, terracotta-like building on Kensington Park Road. We're in sort of proper Hugh Grant, Studio Roberts territory. That kind of paints a picture. It's a very smart church, very well-heeled, lots of interior designers. But Pat Allerton's influence is far bigger and he's gone to kind of great lengths to welcome, pardon the pun, a broader church.

9:53He's massive online. With nearly 200 ,000 Instagram followers and more on TikTok. During lockdown, he kind of went viral because he would visit hospitals and various communities across London, standing outside and effectively holding a church service through speakers for everyone to join in from their place of safety or quarantine, singing hymns, etc., which was just a really nice thing to do, a bit like clap for carers. It's been said that the Church of England is in crisis at the moment. What does Pat Allerton offer instead? So the CV has not had a great couple of years. Justin Welby, who was the last person to hold the title of Archbishop of Canterbury, stepped down last year amid allegations that he failed to act decisively enough on the child sexual abuse accusations that have been levelled against John Smith, who was the chairman of the Iron Trust, who basically organised Christian evangelical camps.

10:42Pat Allerton is kind of a counterpoint to all of this. His brand is much more approachable and accountable. It's a strain of Christianity that's really not bogged down in repression like a lot of the others. He's married, he's got two daughters. He told me that he very often gets close to tears in church. This is a very open, modern environment that's very inclusive. What struck me in particular was how much he encourages people, including men, to kind of get in touch with their more sensitive side. And I thought there was something very comforting in having strong men like Pat Allerton in the world that also has men like Andrew Tate, who kind of pose as strong men and indoctrinate young boys into thinking that this is what masculinity is.

11:19What might be the appeal of turning to faith in this day and age? religion and spirituality will often fill void at times of great kind of devolution and despair that's when you typically find like a yearning for godliness and for sacredness for something that's sort of beyond our rational understanding because the rational we feel has failed us statistically speaking for the first time in five generations christianity is winning more converts than losing them which is quite astonishing and you know it's not just people like pat allerton he's not the only kind of cool priest around i'm using cool between inverted commas there's also a guy called Archie Coates who's the lead vicar at Holy Trinity Brompton which is the one the church right behind the oratory catholic church in South Kent his sermons all live streamed to YouTube and in the words of my former colleague Claudia Cockerell they have diary of a CEO-esque titles like step into your calling and everyone's a leader I think there's such a yearning for strong voices and for direction at the moment and a vicar or a priest delivering a sermon is someone who is frequently in that position.

12:20They also typically tend to be quite good speakers, so they've got an advantage there. Does he know that you've referred to him as the hot vicar of Notting Hill? Oh no, he absolutely knows. He finds it hilarious. I mean, I don't see why anyone wouldn't be happy about being called attractive. At the end of the day, he may be closer to God than most of us, but he is still human. One of the first questions I asked him was how familiar he was with hot priest lore, you know, had he watched Fleabag? And although he was slightly late to the game, he told me he is very familiar with it. And what impression did he make when you met him?

12:51I thought he was a truly, genuinely lovely person, very smart. I think we have a reasonable amount in common in that I'm also religious and Catholic. My hinterland is not entirely dissimilar to his. I think it certainly helped our chap that I sort of knew what he was talking about when he was talking about this particular moment in the Old Testament. That being said, this is someone who is such an incredible storyteller that people who don't necessarily share our knowledge of Christian doctrine and Christian texts can be welcomed into it with a warm embrace. It all may sound slightly evangelical, like the words I'm using, but that's really not the vibe that he's giving.

13:23This is a guy who wears white t-shirts, trainers and enjoys a glass of wine. This is a normal person and I think that's the main aspect of his appeal.

13:36and that's the standard for all the latest news head to standard.co.uk if you'd like to get in touch please do drop us a line at podcasts at standard.co.uk we'll be back here tomorrow at 5pm we'll see you then