Euro 2024: Watkins winner sets England up with Spain in the final

England reaches back-to-back Euro finals after beating the Netherlands 2-1 with a late Ollie Watkins goal. They will face Spain in the final.

Ollie Watkins wheels away in celebrations after scoring England's winner against the Netherlands in the semifinal of the 2023 Euros on Wednesday. (Photo credit: GOAL)

England will feature in back-to-back Euro finals for the first time in their history after beating the Netherlands with a late Ollie Watkins strike on Wednesday night at the Signal Iduna Park.

The 3Lions put up a top performance, especially in the second half, to rise above the Oranje challenge after going down 1-0 following a clinical strike by Xavi Simmons; it was no doubt England's best performance of the competition so far.

Donyel Malen came in for Steven Bergwijn in Ronald Koeman’s lineup, and the front three, which also included Cody Gakpo and Memphis Depay, gave England a torrid start. It wasn’t a surprise that the Netherlands got their noses in front as early as the 7^th minute.

A poorly timed tackle by Declan Rice set Simmons up for a wonder strike, which Jordan Pickford couldn’t do anything about. One could have become two not long after with another good effort from Simmons, but Pickford guided it wide.

England stepped up from there; Arsenal’s Bukayo Saka was their lively outlet, taking on players and sending balls into the box for players to attack, and it was also not a surprise that it was one of Saka’s forays that earned England their leveller.

Denzel Dumfries caught the Arsenal man, who drove in from the edge of the box to set up Harry Kane, after the England captain sent his effort wide. The on-field call was no foul, but VAR intervened, and Kane got his chance from the spot; he made no mistakes.

The end-to-end stuff followed, and the two sides went for it. It felt like it was going into extra time until Gareth Southgate rang changes; he sent on Ollie Watkins to replace Kane, and the Aston Villa man rifled one in at the end to hand England the win.

England will square up against La Roja to determine the identity of the new European kings. The wait could be over for England, having never won the European championships, but they must beat the only team to have won every game at the tournament.