I went to the opening match, a semi-final and the final, with friends and family across the tournament and at each one there was the same unmistakable charge in the air, not the brittle edge of novelty or the forced volume of hype, but something steadier, something that felt as though it had been building quietly for years and had finally reached a point where it could stop apologising for existing. You could sense it in the trams before kick-off, in the flags folded over shoulders, in the parents explaining line-ups to children who didn’t need much explaining at all.

The opening game, Switzerland against Norway, was a sold-out sea of red and noise, but what struck me was not the volume so much as the tone; it was loud without being aggressive, buoyant without being performative, joyful in a way that didn’t need to announce itself. There was no posturing, no tribal chest-beating, just the simple pleasure of being present at something that felt communal rather than combative.

By the semi-final against France, excitement had thickened into belief, and you could feel the stadium settle into its own confidence. The Marseillaise rose at full volume, tackles landed with intent, and that peculiar ripple of sound began in one corner and rolled across the stands like electricity seeking ground. Fathers lifted daughters to see, women in their twenties swapped scarves with girls half their age, and what might once have felt borrowed or provisional instead felt entirely owned.

My daughter followed the tournament as if it were a personal undertaking. She already adored Lia Wälti, but by the final whistle she had added Chloe Kelly and Leah Williamson to the list and had decided, with the sort of unshakeable certainty only children possess, that she was now an Arsenal supporter for life. Months later she went out at Halloween dressed as Chloe Kelly, England shirt, ponytail, headband, entirely unconcerned that she was the only one on the street not dressed as a ghost or a witch.

What struck me was how unremarkable it seemed to her. She didn’t frame it as progress, didn’t pause to consider whether girls playing football was noteworthy, because in her world it isn’t. Women play, women win, medals belong to whoever earns them. That’s how you know something has shifted properly, when it no longer needs to be described as change.

When I was her age, women’s matches weren’t on television, there were no posters, no mainstream narrative to step into. You had to imagine yourself into those spaces. She doesn’t. She’s already there.

And it still feels remarkable to have been there when England won a final, almost like being granted a kind of second sporting citizenship after years of watching the men’s team fall short.

Beyond the pitch, Basel carried itself with quiet assurance. On the tram home after the final we spoke to English fans who’d never visited Switzerland before, and they talked about how easy it had been to move around, how welcoming everyone had been, how much they’d enjoyed it. The city felt open rather than over-curated, proud without trying too hard.

The sponsors, interestingly, seemed to sense the mood. Lidl Switzerland’s healthy food presence around the fan zones felt considered rather than intrusive, Swisscom and SWISS both leaned into warmth rather than noise, and the girls’ football tournament sponsored by JustEat felt genuinely aligned with the spirit of the event. There was less of the reflex to plaster logos everywhere and call it engagement, and more of an understanding that experiences carry further than visibility ever will. If your brand adds something tangible to the day, people will photograph it, share it, remember it, and they’ll associate that memory with you long after the banners have come down.

There will, inevitably, be a rush now, budgets repositioned and strategies reframed around the women’s game, because that’s how markets behave when something proves its permanence.

But what mattered this summer wasn’t the narrative around it, or even the scale of it; it was the experience of it, lived, shared and, above all, entirely normal.

And once something feels normal, it rarely goes backwards.