Spain have reached their first-ever Women\u2019s European Championship final, thanks to a moment of brilliance in extra time. Aitana Bonmat\u00ed produced the decisive spark on Wednesday night, netting a stunning goal in the 113th minute to secure a dramatic 1\u20130 victory over Germany. It was a tense and emotional battle, with Spain dominating much of the game but finding it hard to break down a rock-solid German defence. Now, they\u2019re set for a blockbuster final against reigning champions England in Basel on Sunday a rematch of the 2023 World Cup final, where Spain were crowned world champions for the first time. Spain captain Irene Paredes struck the foot of the post with a first-half header as her side dominated possession, with the Germans building a solid defensive block and inviting the Spaniards to attack while they attempted to hit on the counter. Germany winger Klara Buhl was impressive throughout, getting in behind the Spanish defence in the 63rd minute but firing straight at keeper Cata Coll. With the Germans defending superbly, Spain struggled to break them down, and they were almost caught out in stoppage time when Buhl had a deflected effort that Coll had to claw away. The game ended goalless, forcing extra time. The Germans, who entered the match with a record of nine wins from ten previous Euro semi-finals, looked likely to drag the contest to penalties but Bonmati had other ideas. For Bonmati, who suffered a meningitis-related health scare in the lead-up to the tournament, the goal was especially sweet as it marked Spain\u2019s first-ever victory over Germany at a major finals. \u201c(I feel) proud. We deserve it. We\u2019ve had a brutal championship. But we\u2019ve also had a great tournament so far until today,\u201d Bonmati said, acknowledging how tough it was to break the Germans down. \u201cToday we also suffered, of course, against Germany. It\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve beaten Germany too, and for those who win at the end of the European Championship, what more could you ask for, right?\u201d Berger, who was the hero of Germany\u2019s quarter-final shootout win over France, took responsibility for the goal that led to her side crashing out of the tournament. \u201cI take the blame for that as well. The near post had to be covered, that\u2019s clear, and that\u2019s why I\u2019m even more disappointed in myself,\u201d she said. \u201cI can make as many saves as I want, but that goal should have simply been mine, and that\u2019s why I feel incredibly sorry not even for myself, but for the team because they really gave everything.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spain have reached their first-ever Women\u2019s European Championship final, thanks to a moment of brilliance in extra time. Aitana Bonmat\u00ed produced the decisive spark on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25992,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}