Lionesses win on ‘foreign soil’ is a landmark on path from insularity

A linguistic nuance, maybe, forged in Fleet Street’s hot metal days. Easy shorthand. But embedded there is a clue to English sport’s sense of expedition, which is why men show up on Ashes and British & Irish Lions tours dressed as Crusaders.

And why, too, for generations, some England fans following the men’s team in Europe went not to visit but to occupy, hanging giant flags in town squares, obscuring whole bars and restaurants, and keeping the locals awake with chants of “Ingerlund til I die”.

Even in the age of mass package holidays and city breaks, the idea has persisted that abroad is a mysterious and (to some) inferior place, where planting an English flag physically, or just figuratively, will remind everyone who’s boss.

“Foreign soil” with England senior teams stayed barren. Before last weekend it wouldn’t have been enough to say England had won trophies only in England. They’d won trophies only at Wembley – scene of the 1966 win (men) and the first of the women’s two European Championship victories, in 2022.

Since 1966 the men have failed to win World Cups in Mexico (twice), Spain, Italy, France, Japan/South Korea, Germany, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and Qatar. They have fallen short in European Championships in Italy (twice), Germany (twice), Sweden, England (twice), Belgium/the Netherlands, Portugal, Poland/Ukraine and France.

Thus you can see where the hang-up came from (the England men’s Under-21s escaped this, winning back-to-back Euros in Georgia and Slovakia).

England’s women have had much less time to be denied the pleasure of cavorting in foreign cities. World Cup wins have eluded them in Sweden, China, Germany, Canada, France and Australia/New Zealand. In European Championships, too, before last weekend, there were thwarted efforts overseas. The list is there to accentuate the point that “foreign soil” had become a very big hang-up in the English psyche: the last frontier. Why? Each tournament would have to be judged individually, but there was a long cultural disconnect in the English game: a belief that the game’s “mother country” had nothing to learn from foreigners.

Adapting to overseas conditions, hotels, pitches, languages, food, customs and traditions was for a long time a bigger deal than you might imagine, in this age of smartphone globalisation.

Sarina Wiegman’s Lionesses aren’t products of the old parochialism, or even the culture that produced a great working-class team to win for Alf Ramsey in 1966. But when goalkeeper Hannah Hampton said: “We have that grit, we’ve got English blood in us, we never say die and we just keep going,” it was possible to pick out a core faith of English sport – male and female.

Unity, fighting spirit and patriotism were English football’s counterweight to superior technical and tactical ability. It seldom worked. This time it did. Lucy Bronze playing the whole tournament with what she described as a “fractured tibia” was frankly quite disturbing. Pushed through an English prism, it re-emerged as amazing valour. England led for four minutes 52 seconds in their three knockout games but ended up champions. Their back line was easily breached but they finished up rejoicing outside Buckingham Palace. Wiegman’s 2022 side were better than the 2025 version. Yet second-half fightbacks and two inspirational substitutes (Chloe Kelly and Michelle Agyemang) conspired to make them weirdly unstoppable.

So what did we all do next? Spark up a polemic about what constitutes “Englishness” from the usual fixed positions. We zoomed in on the term “proper English”, and squabbled over what that meant.

Some raced straight for ethnicity and identity. The submerged motif was the inescapable constant of English life: class. These Lionesses are relatable to millions because they seem so familiar not as idols or celebrities but as people.

A combined TV audience of 16 million and unfettered joy across the land is traceable not so much to the “foreign soil” demon being slayed so much as the connection people feel to these players, who, in their hour of glory, hinted that English fighting spirit is somehow unique.

It isn’t. The French, Germans, Scots – whoever – will fight just as hard as the English when a trophy is at stake. But there’s no harm in drawing on a reservoir of native pluck if you think it’s there.

Long-term success tends to hinge on other things. “Pride and passion” count but the bigger determinants are ball retention and retrieval, technique, player development, individual brilliance, structure and environment. English football has been on a path for a long time towards sophistication and away from insularity. Hallelujah to that.

Thanks to the Lionesses, we can stop talking about “foreign soil” and now just call it “abroad”.

Photo by Mark Leech/Getty Images