Hannah Hampton was delighted to have kept her first clean sheet at a major tournament after England’s 4-0 European Championship victory over the Netherlands on Wednesday.
After a few years of being understudy to Mary Earps, the Chelsea goalkeeper is now England’s number one but her maiden start in a major tournament ended in disappointment when the Lionesses lost their opening match of Women's Euro 2025 to Group D rivals France at the weekend.
That defeat sparked some candid dialogue within the squad, and a revived England team roared to victory in their second outing in Switzerland.
‘We had a very open and honest conversation within the whole group and put everything out on the table,’ Hampton told BBC Five Live after the match. ‘After that, we really got around one another and encouraged (each other), and you could probably see that in the performance.’
In addition to keeping a clean sheet against the Netherlands, Hampton played a sublime line-splitting pass through to Alessia Russo in the build-up to Lauren James’ opener.
It was Russo who played in James on the edge of the penalty area, meaning the Chelsea stopper was credited with the pre-assist.
Hampton was asked what she preferred: the clean sheet or the pre-assist during his post-match interview.
‘I'll take the clean sheet because technically I've not got the assist, have I?’, laughed Hampton. ‘That's the next stage, to get the assist!
‘Defensively, we were secure - I don't think they had a shot on target all game. We just wanted to get them on the back foot, and we thought they would then drop off. They didn't, so we just kept going and going, and they were uncomfortable a lot of the time. It worked in our favour, so why change something when it's working so well?'
Hampton was backed by chants of 'England's number one' from inside the Letzigrund Stadium in Zurich on Wednesday.
Although too concentrated on the action to have taken them in during the live action, the goalkeeper was pleased to hear about the positivity towards her afterwards.
That said, she didn’t give any promises to be able to tune in to any crowd noise in future!
‘No [I didn't hear the fans' chants], I was quite focused on the game, but that's lovely to hear,’ Hampton smiled. ‘Next time I'll try to listen out for it, but I think I might get in trouble if I'm not focusing on the game! But yeah, it's lovely.’