How the Lionesses Are Changing the Game for the Next Generation

Seventeen million people sat glued to their screens as England’s Lionesses battled in the Euro 2025 final. The result mattered, of course. But what mattered more were the echoes: the playground conversations the next morning, the muddy boots laced up on Saturday, and the new role models for little girls across the country.

The Lionesses are not just athletes. They are cultural shifters. They are opening doors that once felt bolted shut, and the next generation is already running through them.

The 2025 Lionesses squad on their victory tour around London.

The change is measurable as well as magical. New research tracked by Football Beyond Borders shows that 36% of teenage girls in England are now connected to a football club, a figure that would have been almost unthinkable only a few years ago. It is proof that the Lionesses’ victories are not contained by the ninety minutes of play or the boundaries of the pitch but the ripple of influence outward into everyday life. Since England lifted the Euros in 2022, the number of women and girls’ teams has significantly increased, filling local parks and community centres with the sound of whistles, laughter, and the thud of footballs against makeshift goalposts.

The Lionesses’ legacy has slipped into the ordinary and the familiar. It lives in the girl who signs up for her first training session, in the parent rearranging schedules to make room for practice, and in the friendships formed in muddy boots under floodlights on a Tuesday evening.

When little girls see women’s names on shirts, when they watch stadiums filled to capacity, they don’t just admire, theybelieve. Belief turns into ambition. Ambition into participation.

For these girls, football is not just about learning to kick a ball. It is about confidence, belonging, and resilience. A goal scored in a Saturday league is not only a point on the boardbut a lesson in courage. It tells a girl that she is capable of more than she thought. That same lesson travels with her into the classroom, into friendships, into the rest of her life. The Lionesses know this. They have lived it. And now they are passing it on.

The winners of the 2025 European championship.

The rise of women’s football has been remarkable, but the story is still unfinished. For every girl who charges onto the pitch with certainty, another lingers on the edge, held back by hurdles that are not always easy to see. In too many schools, the game is treated as an afterthought for girls, something offered if time and space allow rather than built into the heart of sporting life. At local clubs, scarce resources still tilt the balance. When equipment runs short, when coaches are stretched and the pitches are booked solid, it is usually the girls who are asked to wait their turn.

Yet the real barriers often lie beneath the surface. Adolescence is a time of sharp insecurities when the smallest differences feel magnified. For some girls, stepping onto a football pitch feels like stepping into the spotlight, a place where doubts and fears are hard to hide. Old stereotypes still linger in the background, suggesting who belongs and who does not. These quiet, persistent pressures can shape choices before a ball is even kicked. They remind us that dreams alone are not enough, what matters is building an environment that welcomes and sustains them.

And still, something has shifted. The mood around the game is no longer hesitant, no longer dismissive. Women’s football is celebrated now for its skill, its grit, and its brilliance. The stands are filled with people who come not out of curiosity but out of devotion. Each season carries a little more momentum, each year more girls see the game as theirs without question. Families buy boots for daughters without pausing to ask if it makes sense. Teachers slot fixtures into calendars as naturally as for any other team. Slowly but steadily, football is shaking off its old boundaries. It is no longer marked by division; it is marked by possibility.

What is happening is not a passing surge. It is the slow and steady laying of foundations, solid, unshakable, and lasting.These roots are being built not only for the girls who play today, but for the countless others who will follow, carrying the game into a future where it belongs fully and equally to everyone.

Winning celebrations caught on camera.

The Lionesses have changed more than the game and have reshaped the possibilities for young girls, becoming a figurehead of what happens when women are truly seen, included and supported. Football is no longer something watched from the sidelines, it is a place young girls can call their own. In muddy fields and crowded playgrounds, girls are discovering not just the joy of sport but the power of knowing they deserve to be there.

Every time she ties her laces, every goal she makes, she is also practising something even more monumental. Her courage, her resilience, and her certainty that her voice matters. The beauty of this moment is that it is no longer an exception. Girls are expecting to join in, not just waiting for permission, the start of planting the roots of equality in the everyday, turning inclusion into something natural and unshakable.

The Lionesses have sparked this shift, but the story now belongs to those following them. A generation of girls are not just watching their heroes but by becoming them.

Written by Lucie Oliver, edited by Valentina Milne & Serena Chamberlain