The Queen has led the tributes to England's Women's Euro 2022 winners, sending a message of congratulations in which she called them "an inspiration".
The Lionesses beat Germany 2-1 at Wembley thanks to goals from substitutes Ella Toone and Chloe Kelly.
It is England's first major tournament success since the 1966 men's World Cup.
England Women's National Team wins Euro 2022 (Image-Getty Images)
"My warmest congratulations, and those of my family, go to you all on winning the European Women's Championships," a statement from the UK monarch said.
There will be a victory celebration in front of fans at Trafalgar Square on Monday between 11:00 and 14:00 BST - an event that will be broadcast live on BBC One from 12:40 BST.
The Queen's message added: "It is a significant achievement for the entire team, including your support staff.
"The Championships and your performance in them have rightly won praise. However, your success goes far beyond the trophy you have so deservedly earned.
"You have all set an example that will be an inspiration for girls and women today, and for future generations."It is my hope that you will be as proud of the impact you have had on your sport as you are of the result today."
European Champions. Unbelievably proud. #Lionesses
Prince William, writing on his Duke and Duchess of Cambridge Twitter account, said: "Sensational. An incredible win. The whole nation couldn't be prouder of you all. Wonderful to see history in the making tonight at Wembley, congratulations!"
Prime Minister Boris Johnson praised Sarina Wiegman's side on social media, writing: "Football has come home! A stunning victory by the Lionesses.
"Huge congratulations to Sarina , Leah and the whole team. Football pitches across the country will be filled as never before by girls and women inspired by your triumph."It was the women's team first major tournament win.
Football Association chief executive Mark Bullingham said it was an "incredible achievement and a historic sporting moment".
"This team of Lionesses have been outstanding ambassadors, both on and off the pitch, from the first game to the last. Each and every member of this squad has left an indelible and enduring mark on women's football in England.
"Not only have they captured the hearts of the nation, but they have also broken down boundaries. They have left a lasting legacy that will positively impact women's and girls' football in this country for generations to come."
England vs Germany is the upcoming final match in UEFA Women's Euro 2022. The three lionesses look to create history and lift the trophy at Wembley against a familiar foe, Germany.
Image- Sportz Point
England vs Germany: Match Preview:
Home support will be on the Lionesses' side and so too a wave of confidence after a sensational run up to this point from Sarina Wiegman's side.
They have conceded just once all tournament and a dominant 4-0 semi-final win over Sweden proved the front-line is well and truly firing. Beth Mead has six goals to her name, while Alessia Russo has four despite starting every match on the bench.
Twice England have made it to the final of a European Championship in the past, in 1984 and 2009. On both occasions they fell at the final hurdle.
That is direct contrast to the eight European titles Germany have to their name - only twice since 1987 have they not been in the final. Like Mead, Alexandra Popp has found the back of the net six times and the pair will battle for the Golden Boot.
Alessia Russo has impressed off the bench in every England match / The FA via Getty Images
Like England, Germany have won every one of their matches at Euro 2022 so far, and head to Wembley with full belief that they can spoil the Lionesses' party.
England vs Germany: Head to Head:
England vs Germany have played a total of 12 matches against each other in the past. Of these 12 outings, the Lionesses have managed just two wins while Germany have come out on top on six occasions. As many as four matches have been drawn.
Date, kick-off time and venue:
England vs Germany is scheduled on Sunday, July 31, 2022.Wembley Stadium in London will host the final.
The match will be telecast live on the SONY TEN 2 and SONY TEN 2 HD TV channels in India.
The live streaming of the UEFA Women's EURO 2022 final can be viewed on the SonyLiv app and website.
Once again Wiegman's faith in her starting XI will be tested. Russo continues to shine off the bench and while that has led to calls for her to replace Ellen White in the team, the Lionesses could opt to keep her in that super-sub role.
Keira Walsh went off against Sweden late on with cramp but is expected to be fine to start again, while Rachel Daly is likely to get the nod at left-back over Alex Greenwood.
Germany:
Germany seemingly suffered no injury problems in their semi-final win over France.
Alexandra Popp has scored in 5 straight games in the #WEURO2022, tying Michel Platini's record which was set way back in 1984's edition.
The big concern for them will be Klara Buhl, who missed that match with Covid. She will need to produce a negative test in the coming days if she is to feature at Wembley.
Squad for the final:
England:
Goalkeepers: Mary Earps, Hannah Hampton, Ellie Roebuck
According to old evidence, UEFA's interest in women's football appeared in November 1970. It was found in a report by General Secretary Hans Bangerter to UEFA's Executive Committee at that month's meeting in Paris. The report mainly focused on the interest of women's football in UEFA's member countries to form UEFA Women's EURO.
Next UEAF Women's Euro will be held in England. Image-UEFA
According to the minutes of the meeting: "It was decided to recommend the associations to keep a watchful eye on the further development of ladies' football in their country to avoid that wily business managers get a hold of it."
The motive got more attention when women's football was placed on the table for the Extraordinary UEFA Congress in Monte Carlo in June 1971.
According to Statista, the cumulative audience of UEFA women's EURO from 2009 to 2017 tripled, reaching a peak of 165 million in 2017. The gain of popularity over the years aroused the interest of bookmakers to offer sports odds on the competition. This fact applies not only to EURO matches but to the entire sphere of women's football, including FA Women's Super League, UEFA Women's Champions League and FIFA Women's World Cup.
Congress Resolution
Eventually, the UEFA Executive Committee considered it important to bring the sport under the category of the national associations before anyone else intervened. The Monte Carlo Congress adopted the following resolution:
"The Extraordinary Congress of UEFA requests the Executive Committee to examine the question of women's football in detail and to take the necessary measures to ensure its uniform organization in all member associations. The UEFA member associations agree to take charge of the control of women's football in their countries, and they require that international matches, competitions, and tournaments be exclusively controlled by the international football authorities, FIFA and UEFA, respectively."
A committee was formed to take care of women's football and was tasked with creating a set of guidelines on women's football structures and standardization, given the number of variations of different Countries and also the size of the ball, and the length of matches.
First women's committee
The Executive Committee responded to the guidelines and officially established a Women's Football Committee. Which included Sweden's Kerstin Rosén, the first female member of a UEFA committee.
The new committee met in Zürich in March 1973 during a women's football conference. Which involved the representatives of 11 UEFA member associations. A survey was carried out before the conference, to which 23 national associations had responded. And seven associations among the 23 ran national women's championships and another seven regional women's leagues. The survey also revealed some support for the introduction of an international competition managed by UEFA. However, some countries favoured the idea of a competition for national teams and others a competition for clubs.
The development of the women's football movement slowed down in a few countries during the promising years. The UEFA Women's Football Committee met only once in 1974. Noting that there were still many obstacles to overcome to create any European competition. This was the committee's last meeting before it was dissolved in 1978.
"It was not felt necessary to have any further direct influence on the development of women's football on a European level," explained Hans Bangerter in his annual report. "After a pause for reflection, however," he added significantly, "this aspect of the game will shortly be receiving the appropriate attention again."
This change of direction followed a survey conducted among the member associations. In which many of the responses had reported a fresh boost in women's football. Consequently, after the period of reflection described by Hans Bangerter, another UEFA women's football conference. That was organized in Zürich in February 1980.
Competition call – green light
The event was attended by panel members from 18 national associations. Participants thought that UEFA should put more attention to women's football and that the national associations should do everything possible to save it from falling into the hands of organizers who were putting their interests above those of the sport itself.
Importantly, they also felt that the time had come to launch a European competition for national teams.
The UEFA Women's Football Committee was kept alive with two female members – Patricia Gregory (England) and Hannelore Ratzeburg (Germany) – sitting alongside chairman Louis Wouters (Belgium), who had recently been elected to the UEFA Executive Committee, Bronisław Kołodziej (Poland) and Carl Nielsen (Denmark).
Their first task was to examine the possibility of meeting at the Zurich conference.
Discussions at the committee's meeting in Lisbon in March 1981 focused on the potential for a national team competition – the introduction of competition for club teams was felt to be impossible for financial reasons. After lots of attempts, the committee decided to submit a series of conclusions to the Executive Committee for approval.
"It was agreed," the minutes stated, "that UEFA should start a competition for national representative women teams under the condition that at least 12 national associations will enter a team.
"It was emphasized that, according to the opinions expressed at the 2nd Conference on Women's Football, 16 national associations are interested in such a competition, of which 12 have already formed regular national sides. Thus, the minimum number of 12 entries should easily be achieved."
Meeting in Florence in April 1981 after the Women's Football Committee had communicated its support for the creation of competition. The Executive Committee gave the green light to the project on the condition that, as proposed. At least 12 of UEFA's 34 members associations were prepared to take part. The Women's Football Committee was asked to draw up draft regulations for the competition. Which were eventually established in the second half of the year.
When entries were invited in December 1981 for the first UEFA Competition for Women's National Representative Teams. The final response was extremely positive: no less than 16 national associations entered.
The committee formed four groups of four teams each for the qualifying competition. Which would begin in the summer of 1982, with the groups based on what UEFA described as "economic criteria".
Group 1: Iceland, Finland, Norway, Sweden
2nd Group: England, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Scotland
Group 3: France, Italy, Portugal, Switzerland
4th Group: Belgium, Denmark, Netherlands, West Germany
The winner of the first title would then be decided in a knockout phase of two-legged matches. Featuring the four group winners. With the final taking place in May 1984.
"Everything moved fast," recalled Hannelore Ratzeburg in the April 2006 issue of UEFA's official magazine UEFA Direct. "The decision was taken in 1981, and the first matches were already played the next year. The fact that 16 associations entered in such a short space of time was brilliant.
"In Germany," she added, "the DFB entered the competition first, and then I had to set about creating a national women's team afterward. We even had to postpone our first match against Belgium because we still didn't have a team."
The fact that less than half of UEFA's member associations at the time entered. Proved to be a barrier to the new competition receiving 'championship' status. This would eventually follow for the 1989–91 edition. The regulations also agreed that matches would be played over two halves of 35 minutes each, using size four footballs.
The first-ever match in the competition took place on 18 August 1982. When Finland entertained Sweden in Vammala – the Swedes ran out 6-0 winners. By the late autumn of 1983, Denmark, England, Italy, and Sweden had emerged as qualifying group winners.
Sweden stride to glory
The semi-finals in April 1984 were all head-to-head battles. England beat Denmark 2-1 in Crewe and 1-0 away in Hjørring. While Sweden followed up a 3-2 win against Italy in Rome. In front of a crowd of 10,000 – with a 2-1 success in Linköping.
Gothenburg's Ullevi stadium was the venue for the final's first leg on 21 May 1984, and Pia Sundhage. Who went on to establish legendary status in the women's game as a player and coach. Scored the only goal with a bullet header after an hour to give Sweden a narrow advantage.
The return leg at Kenilworth Road. Luton six days later proved to be a demanding tussle owing to heavy rain and a sodden pitch. England levelled on aggregate through Linda Curl on the half-hour mark. And although Sweden hit the woodwork, the game went to a dramatic penalty shoot-out.
Sweden's goalkeeper Elisabeth Leidinge made a match-winning save, and it was left to Sundhage. Whose outstanding international playing career began in 1975 and lasted until 1996, to give her team a 4-3 shoot-out victory.
She remembers: "I took the last shot. We won the final. It was a marvellous success."
The first edition of the competition encouraged UEFA to seek a more prominent impression. Of the general status of women's football in the different countries throughout Europe. "A comprehensive questionnaire revealed that women's football is developing in most of the member associations," said Hans Bangerter in his General Secretary's Report for 1984–85. "Based on the information thus received, it may be expected that even more European associations will enter the Women's Competition in the future," Bangerter added. The course for the future of women's football was set at 'go'
UEFA Women's EURO 2022 will be the 13th edition of the UEFA Women's Championship. Also, it will be the 2nd edition since the tournament expanded to compete within 16 teams. The UEFA Women's EURO 2022 will kickstart from 6th July 2021 in England. The first clash will be between the hosts and Austria at Old Trafford.
Group A: England (hosts), Austria, Norway, Northern Ireland
England and Austria will play the first match the tournament at Old Trafford on 6th July.
England dismissed Norway out of the last 2 FIFA Women's World Cups; in the 2019 quarter-finals and in the 2015 round of 16.
Norway, two-time champions, emerged victory Northern Ireland twice during qualifying.
Austria went on to the semi-finals on their debut in the year 2017.
Northern Ireland are playing their first women's final tournament. Unfortunately, they lost 4-0 against England in a World Cup qualifier. Austria also happens to be in that group.
Group B: Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland
Denmark won the quarter-finals in 2017 and put an end to Germany's 22-year reign as champions.
Germany emerged victory Spain by 1-0 in the 2019 World Cup group stage.
In the last finals of 2005 hosted in England, Finland dismissed Denmark in the group stage and reached the semi-finals on their debut. Sadly, they lost against Germany.
The UEFA Women's EURO 2022 will be the 13th edition of the tournament since its inception. This tournament is organized by UEFA for the women's national teams in Europe.
This 2022 edition was meant to be hosted in 2020 but because of covid 19, it got postponed. With the Olympics and Men's Euro 2020 getting postponed to 2021, the UEFA Women's EURO was rescheduled and will take place from 6 to 31 July 2022.
England is the host nation, while the Netherlands will be the defending champions, and Northern Ireland is participating in a UEFA Women's EURO competition for the first time.
Meet the 16 participating teams before the UEFA Women's EUROdraw
An astonishing 47 teams took part in the UEFA Women's EURO 2022 qualifying groups and 15 teams qualified to join the hosts England. The draw is on 28 October in Greater Manchester.
AUSTRIA
The last tournament's semi-finalists have qualified for this year's edition as well as they were Group G's best runner-ups. They are one of the teams who got selected based on the runner-ups' rankings compared to other teams.
The runners up from the last tournament have qualified for the final draw of the Euro 2022 as Denmark finished on top of their Group B. They had to play 10 matches as they had an extra team in their group.
They failed to qualify from the group stages in 2017, but they went to the quarter-finals of the 2019 Women's World Cup. This year Italy finished in Group B as the best runners-up.
First-time participation for Northern Ireland in this tournament. This has been a big moment for the Country as they qualified as Group C runner-ups. They were ranked 32nd out of the 48 contenders before qualifying.
Stats- P8 W4 D2 L2 F17 A17, (Play-off vs Ukraine – W 4-1 agg)
Top Scorer- Rachel Furness (4 Goals)
NORWAY
Norway has qualified as Group C winners. They have only failed to qualify for the quarter-finals just 2 (1997 and 2017) times since 1987. Norway is also a two-time Women's EURO winner, they won it in 1987, 1993.
Stats- P10 W8 D0 L2 F23 A6, (Play-off vs Portugal – W1-0 agg)
Top Scorer- Nelli Korovkina (7 Goals)
SPAIN
Spain qualified for their only ever qualification for one big final tournament before 2013. After that, the Spaniards are now in their fifth tournament in a row.
Sweden won their second straight Olympic silver in 2021; they have also previously appeared in a World Cup and four Women's EURO finals (including their 1984 triumph). They now have qualified as Group F winners.
Stats- P8 W6 D1 L1 F20 A6, (Play-off vs the Czech Republic – D 2-2 agg, W 3-2 pens)
Top Scorer- Ana-Maria Crnogorčević (6 Goals)
UEFA's chief of women's football Nadine Kessler defended that decision to give "maximum exposure for women's football and the goal to provide the tournament with the center stage it deserves."
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