BASEL — In the seconds after Alessia Russo’s equaliser in the Euro 2025 final, the majority of England players flocked into Spain’s final third to celebrate. The exception was Leah Williamson.
The Lionesses captain ran to the bench to high-five every one of the substitutes, before an impromptu team talk with Sarina Wiegman on the sidelines. The leadership the defender has shown throughout this extraordinary, bewildering summer of success has been exemplary. She now has the cold, hard facts to back it up on paper.
No England captain in history had ever won two major tournaments. None had done it on foreign soil. Bobby Moore is immortalised in bronze outside Wembley for leading England to the 1966 World Cup, while Williamson will soon be etched into a statue alongside her teammates. Perhaps there is something fitting in that.
This is a captain who has brought two unifying moments of unprecedented joy to what can often feel like a hopeless and divided nation. This week will mark the anniversary of far-right rioting that exploded across the country last year, with similar unrest outside asylum hotels earlier this month. No footballing achievement can patch up those levels of societal ills.
But if the international game’s job is to unite and celebrate the best of the country, for a moment Williamson’s Lionesses – coached by a Dutchwoman, nine of whom have been migrants at different stages of their careers – have done it again.
A mural commemorating the England captain in her hometown of Newport Pagnell (Photo: PA)Williamson, 28, is acutely aware of what all this means, not just for the legacy it will leave for women’s football but for the “respect of women” themselves. The question that loomed three years ago was whether European Championship success would prove a moment in time, won at home in unique circumstances, or whether momentum would continue.
The Lionesses know success cannot be taken for granted and nor can its aftertaste. In 2003, Martin Johnson led England to a first Rugby World Cup; two decades on, the domestic game is in a dire state. Clubs risk liquidation amid desperate attempts to capture new fans.
Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler, Charlotte Edwards and Heather Knight have all won Cricket World Cups. Morgan’s 2019 success captured the public imagination at the time but it did not revolutionise the sport. And none of them have done it more than once.
Now England will continue to battle for equal access to football for girls in schools. Williamson has also spoken up for refugees, addressing the UN in 2023 after visiting a Za’atari camp in Jordan. Speaking to The i Paper a year before that, she opposed the men’s World Cup being held in Qatar on the grounds of LGBT+ rights and the treatment of migrant workers.
In her hometown of Newport Pagnell, near Milton Keynes, she has become an idol. Locals crowdfunded thousands to have a mural of her repainted after it was taken down. Interest in girls’ football has soared on the pitches where she used to play.
For all this, Williamson remains quietly understated. She models herself on Arsenal skipper Kim Little, while Chloe Kelly (teammate for club and country) believes she has never changed since their early days.
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“I remember stepping into Arsenal at 12 and saying to my parents, ‘Leah’s going to be England captain one day,'” Kelly said.
“She’s just an incredible girl, shows great leadership qualities and [is] so approachable. To captain England at major tournaments, there is a lot of pressure but it doesn’t show in Leah’s personality at all.”
There was no obvious successor when Wiegman opted to replace Steph Houghton as captain in 2021, though Williamson’s abilities quickly began to shine through.
“She rallies the team, gets everyone going, keeps everyone together and leads by example in the way she plays,” Ella Toone says.
It was required more than ever at this Euros. She finished in the top three centre-backs for line-breaking passes and averaged nearly eight ball recoveries per game. She also played alongside three different centre-backs in Jess Carter, Alex Greenwood and Esme Morgan.
Her pastoral and professional care of Carter stood out the most. In the quarter-final win over Sweden, she swapped sides with her to provide more cover and rallied around her when Carter revealed she had been the victim of online racism.
“When I look in her eyes, I know that she’s got me and I’ve got her,” Williamson said of Carter after the final.
The one thing missing is a World Cup title. In 2023 she was sidelined with a torn ACL and watched the final from the stands.
“It was awful,” Williamson said this weekend. She felt “completely useless.”
“To sit with the families, knowing what they go through actually makes me reflect on this tournament – and we haven’t been very kind to them at all.”
Few will remember the missed penalty in the shootout. Only the trophy lift that put Williamson in a class of her own.
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