With a Late Goal Fit for a King, England Reaches Another Euro Final by Beating Netherlands 2-1

England's Ollie Watkins, left, celebrates with England's Marc Guehi after winning a semifinal match between the Netherlands and England at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Dortmund, Germany, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP)
England's Ollie Watkins, left, celebrates with England's Marc Guehi after winning a semifinal match between the Netherlands and England at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Dortmund, Germany, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP)
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With a Late Goal Fit for a King, England Reaches Another Euro Final by Beating Netherlands 2-1

England's Ollie Watkins, left, celebrates with England's Marc Guehi after winning a semifinal match between the Netherlands and England at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Dortmund, Germany, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP)
England's Ollie Watkins, left, celebrates with England's Marc Guehi after winning a semifinal match between the Netherlands and England at the Euro 2024 soccer tournament in Dortmund, Germany, Wednesday, July 10, 2024. (AP)

England is into another European Championship final after its latest dramatic, come-from-behind win that even took King Charles III on a roller coaster ride.

Ollie Watkins, who came on for captain Harry Kane in a bold call by England coach Gareth Southgate, scored in the first minute of stoppage time to earn England a 2-1 win over the Netherlands on Wednesday and a shot at Spain in the title match.

In the knockout stage at Euro 2024, England has scored a stoppage-time equalizer through Jude Bellingham before edging past Slovakia in the last 16 and needed a penalty-shootout to see off Switzerland in the quarterfinals.

England is keeping its supporters back home on the edge of their seats — and that includes its monarch.

“If I may encourage you to secure victory before the need for any last minute wonder-goals or another penalties drama, I am sure the stresses on the nation’s collective heart rate and blood pressure would be greatly alleviated!” the king said in a congratulatory message soon after the game in Dortmund.

Watkins' goal was fit for a king.

He had only made one previous appearance at Euro 2024 — as a substitute in the group game against Denmark — so it was a surprise when he was introduced by Southgate in the 80th minute in England’s biggest match so far.

The gamble paid off.

Fed by another substitute in Cole Palmer, Watkins took a touch with his back to goal just inside the area and, from a tight angle, smashed a fierce shot into the bottom corner.

“Unbelievable — I’ve been waiting for that moment for weeks,” said Watkins, the Aston Villa striker who was the fourth-equal top scorer in the Premier League last season. “It’s taken a lot of hard work to get to where I am today. I got the opportunity and took it with both hands.”

It was painful for Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman.

“I had a feeling toward the end of the match that maybe we could score,” Koeman said, “and for sure in extra time I’d have put money on us.”

England will play Lamine Yamal and Spain in Sunday's final in Berlin. It will be the nation's first title match on foreign soil, having won the World Cup in 1966 and lost to Italy in the Euro 2020 final — both times at Wembley Stadium.

“It’s going to be unbelievably tough – a really difficult game,” Kane said of the title match, with Spain widely regarded as the best team at the tournament. “One more game to make history.”

The sea of orange in the giant South Stand at Dortmund's Westfalenstadion fell silent for the first time after Watkins' late goal. It housed the most vocal of the Dutch supporters who dominated the city center before marching in their thousands to the stadium ahead of the game. Police reported three separate clashes between fans from both countries in the city.

It gave the occasion the feeling of a home match for the Dutch and England was up against it even more after the 21-year-old Xavi Simons became the second youngest scorer for the Netherlands at a Euros.

The Paris Saint-Germain midfielder dispossessed Declan Rice about 40 meters (yards) out, drove forward and unleashed a shot into the far corner from outside the area.

Compared to the 16-year-old Yamal, Spain’s new superstar, Simons is a soccer veteran but this was another case of a young player shining on the big stage at the Euros.

Kane has had plenty of big moments at major tournaments and he had another when he slotted home a penalty after Denzel Dumfries’ outstretched leg made contact with Kane’s foot as the England striker attempted a shot.

Kane became the sixth player to be on three goals in the tournament.

An open first half, which saw Dumfries and England’s Phil Foden hit the goal frame, made way for a tight and tense second half that had a huge two-minute spell when Bukayo Saka had a goal disallowed before Kane and Foden were taken off.

It might rank as Southgate’s best call in his eight-year England tenure. And that the goal was set up by Palmer, who entered as a substitute the same time as Watkins, will have made it even sweeter.

“We are giving people some amazing nights ... but we are not finished,” Southgate said.



45-Year-Old Venus Williams Becomes the Oldest Woman Since Martina Navratilova to Win a Singles Match 

Venus Williams participates in a press conference after winning a women's single match against Peyton Stearns (not pictured) on day 2 of the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 at William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center on July 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
Venus Williams participates in a press conference after winning a women's single match against Peyton Stearns (not pictured) on day 2 of the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 at William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center on July 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
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45-Year-Old Venus Williams Becomes the Oldest Woman Since Martina Navratilova to Win a Singles Match 

Venus Williams participates in a press conference after winning a women's single match against Peyton Stearns (not pictured) on day 2 of the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 at William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center on July 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)
Venus Williams participates in a press conference after winning a women's single match against Peyton Stearns (not pictured) on day 2 of the Mubadala Citi DC Open 2025 at William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center on July 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Getty Images/AFP)

Venus Williams became the second-oldest woman to win a tour-level singles match in professional tennis, delivering some of her familiar big serves and groundstrokes at age 45 while beating Peyton Stearns — 22 years her junior — by a 6-3, 6-4 score at the DC Open on Tuesday night.

This was the first singles victory for Williams in nearly two years. The only older woman to win a match was Martina Navratilova at 47 in 2004.

The former No. 1-ranked Williams had not played singles in an official match since March 2024 in Miami, missing time while having surgery to remove uterine fibroids. She hadn't won in singles since August 2023 in Cincinnati. Until this week, she was listed by the WTA Tour as "inactive."

"It is not easy," Williams said, "to (come back) after all that time and play the perfect match."

But backed by a crowd that clearly was there to see, and support, her at the hard-court tournament in the nation's capital, Williams showed glimpses of the talent she possesses and the skills she displayed while earning all of her Grand Slam titles: seven in singles, 14 in women’s doubles — all alongside younger sister Serena — and two in mixed doubles.

"I wanted to play a good match," she told the fans, then added a phrase that drew appreciative roars: "and win the match."

In Tuesday's second game, for example, Williams smacked a return winner to get things started, then delivered a couple of other big responses to break Stearns, a 23-year-old who won singles and team NCAA titles at the University of Texas and is currently ranked 35th.

In the next game, Williams sprinted forward to reach a drop shot and replied with a winner. Soon, she led 4-2, then was closing that set.

She was accompanied by choruses of cheers. The first arrived when Williams walked out into the main stadium at the DC Open, a 7,000-seat arena that's more than twice as large as where she was for her doubles victory a day earlier. Another came when she strode from the sideline to the center of the court for the formality of the coin toss. The noise really reached a crescendo when Williams began hitting aces — at 110 mph and faster — the way she used to.

There also were moments where Williams — who said her fiancé was in the stands — looked as if it had been just as long as it actually has since she competed, including in the opening game, when she got broken at love this way: forehand wide, forehand into the net, forehand long, backhand long.

At the end, it took Williams a bit of extra effort to close things out. She kept holding match points and kept failing to convert them. But eventually, on her sixth chance, Williams powered in a 112 mph serve that Stearns returned into the net. That was it: Williams smiled wide as can be, raised a fist and jogged to the net to shake hands, then performed her customary post-win pirouette-and-wave.

She advanced to a second-round matchup against No. 5 seed Magdalena Frech, a 27-year-old from Poland.

In other action Tuesday, Emma Raducanu handed No. 7 seed Marta Kostyuk a sixth consecutive loss by eliminating her 7-6 (4), 6-4. That set up a matchup between Raducanu and four-time major champion Naomi Osaka, who was a 6-2, 7-5 winner against Yulia Putintseva.

Two top men's seeds exited: Cam Norrie beat No. 2 Lorenzo Musetti 3-6, 6-2, 6-3, and No. 3 Holger Rune withdrew from the tournament because of a back injury. No. 4 seed Ben Shelton defeated Mackie McDonald 6-3, 6-4.