The 26-year-old, who has won 46 caps and captained the Lionesses to Euro 2022 glory, suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury last April and missed the World Cup, but returned to action with Arsenal recently and gets the call-up from Sarina Wiegman.
Millie Bright and Bethany England are out injured while there is no room for Nikita Parris despite a good run of form for Manchester United.
This feels awfully familiar.
Sarina Wiegman's Lionesses have captured the hearts of a nation, with fans flocking to watch them reach their first major tournament final since 2009 where they lost to *checks notes* Germany.
Meanwhile, Martina Voss-Tecklenburg's side have advanced to the final comparatively under the radar, with Die Nationalelf picking up impressive scalps of their own along the way.
It promises to be a fascinating contest at Wembley Stadium in front of what is expected to be a record crowd for any European Championship game - men's or women's - on Sunday.
A huge 90 minutes, maybe more, awaits the two teams, but where will it be won and lost? Stats Perform takes a look at the finer details ahead of the Euro 2022 final.
Raise a glass to Mead and Popp and drink it in
While teams win tournaments, we always look to those individuals who we will remember in years to come for their performances.
Undoubtedly two of the standout players in England during the last three weeks have been Beth Mead and Alexandra Popp, current joint-top scorers with six goals each.
The Lionesses have not found it difficult to score goals, finding the net 20 times in five games in the tournament so far. In fact, only Germany in 2009 have ever scored more at a Women's Euros (21).
Mead's goal in the opening 1-0 win against Austria at Old Trafford was vital for getting their campaign rolling, before she grabbed a hat-trick in the 8-0 thrashing of Norway, another in the 5-0 win against Northern Ireland, and the opener in the 4-0 semi-final humbling of Sweden.
While Germany have not been quite as proficient – still scoring a respectable 13 goals – Popp's contributions had initially come when adding to leads, with the captain's goals against Denmark, Spain, Finland and Austria all arriving when her team were already ahead.
However, she came into her own in the last-four clash with France, scoring both goals in the 2-1 win, including a dominant header to win it with 14 minutes remaining.
Having scored in all five of Germany's games so far, a goal at Wembley would see Popp become just the second player to score in every match from the group stages to the final at a single edition of a European Championship (men's and women's), after Michel Platini for France in 1984.
Whichever one raises their game for the final could ultimately provide the deciding factor. In the case of Popp, it could well be that she has to score herself to make a difference, as she has not yet recorded an assist in the tournament, whereas Mead has four assists to her name, more than anyone else.
The strongest spine could be the key
They say a good attack wins games while a good defence wins trophies. So far, both of these teams have been effective at each end of the pitch.
England's only goal conceded in five games came when they went 1-0 down to Spain in the quarter-finals, before coming back to win 2-1 in extra time, while Germany's one against was an own goal in their semi-final against France.
An opposition player is yet to find a way past Germany, and it is not hard to see why. Kathrin-Julia Hendrich and Marina Hegering have been a steely combination at the back for Voss-Tecklenburg's team, with Hegering making 41 ball recoveries in her five games, the joint seventh most among outfield players in the tournament.
Germany youngster Lena Oberdorf has had an outstanding tournament in midfield and has 44 ball recoveries to her name.
That is the same number as England captain Leah Williamson, a player who leads by example at centre-back alongside Millie Bright, who has managed a team-high 21 clearances.
Both centre-back pairings have had plenty of help in front of them, with 20-year-old Oberdorf attempting more tackles (19) than any other player from the two finalists, while England's Keira Walsh has recovered the ball 36 times and has the best passing accuracy of any player to have attempted at least 250 passes (89.56 per cent).
Midfield could be a key area for England, who as a team have attempted 2,597 passes overall with an accuracy of 83.4 per cent, both ranked second across the tournament, while Germany have attempted 2,222 passes (ranked fourth) with an accuracy of 77 per cent (ranked seventh).
England's Germany hoodoo
It is not exclusive to the women's game, but England have an unflattering record against Germany, especially in major tournaments.
The Lionesses have won just two of their 27 meetings with Germany in all competitions, and have lost more often against them than any other opponent (D4 L21), though they did win their last meeting 3-1 in February.
Germany have won all four of their matches against England at Women's Euros by an aggregate score of 15-4. This will be the first meeting between the sides at the tournament since the 2009 final, which Germany won 6-2.
That was the last time England reached a Women's Euros final, having also lost to Sweden in 1984, while this will be Germany's ninth appearance in a final, meaning they have appeared in 69 per cent of Women's Euros title matches. They have triumphed on all eight of their previous appearances in finals so far.
You could therefore be forgiven for thinking that too much history is on the Germans' side for England to stand a chance, but the tournament hosts have a not-so-secret weapon.
Wiegman will be the first manager to have led two different nations in Women's Euros finals, having won the 2017 tournament with the Netherlands, and her overall record in the competition shows 11 wins from 11 games, with her teams having scored 33 goals and conceded just four.
Whatever happens on Sunday, it is sure to be quite a spectacle. Will football finally come "home", or will Germany repeat history and add to their own outstanding legacy?
The Lionesses will contest their fourth straight semi-final at a major tournament at Bramall Lane on Tuesday, having reached the stage in successive World Cups either side of the 2017 European Championship.
England have featured in five previous Euros semi-finals and only progressed from two of them, in 1984 and 2009.
Wiegman, who is yet to taste defeat in 18 matches in charge of England, wants the team to forget their previous defeats as they look to close in on a first major trophy.
"I think it is necessary to be in the now and I do think you always have to learn from your experiences and take out the things you can take out to be better, become better or to learn," said Wiegman in a pre-match news conference.
"But it's no use now to talk about that all the time because it's now. It is now. So why should we talk about that all the time?
"We first have to play a semi-final and that's the only thing that counts. Again, we're in the now. All the focus is on our game against Sweden – that's the only thing we talk about.
"How do we want to play? How do we collaborate as a team? How do we try to exploit their weaknesses, take out their strengths and use our own strengths? That's the only thing we're talking about.
"I think reaching the semi-final has been really great already and we saw that we brought a lot of inspiration.
"But I think our fans gave us a lot of inspiration too. We are only focused on tomorrow and that's what it is, and we hope we get the result we want.
"The England team is ready to play the best game against Sweden, and hopefully we can inspire the nation."
Millie Bright scored an own goal in the Euro 2017 semi-final loss to the Netherlands and was sent off as England fell to the United States in the last four of the 2019 World Cup.
She said: "We are on a new journey. It's a new path for us as a group. Like I said, [we've got] different players in, so for us it's kind of a fresh slate almost and again we focus on the here and the now.
"The position we are in as a squad going into this game is that we are in a very good position and we are ready to fight. Everyone is feeling great."
That is the view of former Lionesses skipper Faye White, who says England should "see themselves as equals" with the eight-time European champions but is wary of the threat posed by Germany's goal-hungry captain.
"I don't worry as much as I would have certainly a few years ago or in the past," White told Stats Perform.
White captained England in the Euro 2009 final, where hopes of a first European title were dashed as Germany dished out a 6-2 victory hammering in Helsinki.
Prolific striker Birgit Prinz scored twice that day for Germany, and White said Popp presents "exactly the same" threat, with the Wolfsburg star having joined England's Beth Mead on six goals in the battle for the Golden Boot.
Popp's double against France led Germany to a 2-1 semi-final victory, teeing up the shot at hosts England, whose 4-0 demolition of Sweden underlined their threat.
White said what impressed her most about Popp, who is coming off a long knee injury lay-off, was "that clinicalness... that desire we could see with both her goals".
The first was a volley on the stretch, and the second a bullet header after finding a yard of space that left White "speechless".
"That is what she has and that's why I think it's a massive game for our two centre-halves," White said.
White's view is that when it comes to powerful strikers, Germany "just breed them", with 31-year-old Popp the latest in a long line.
If England are to set aside a record of two wins from 27 past meetings with Germany, then keeping Popp quiet will surely be essential.
"Millie and Leah have to win the battle basically. And it's the biggest game of their lives. Trust me," White said.
England have had many special moments in the tournament, with an 8-0 thrashing of Norway in the group stage, the extra-time victory over Spain in the quarter-finals and Tuesday's demolition job on Sweden capturing the imagination.
Germany have perhaps had fewer similarly exhilarating results, but they have been impressively solid, leading White to state that "everyone just has to have a big game" if England are to lift the trophy at Wembley.
She says England are "in a mindset where they will relish it rather than be squashed by that", adding: "We are in the best place we will ever be to be able to do it and beat them. I just keep thinking, please make this time be the time we get one over on Germany."
England have been semi-finalists at the past two World Cups and also reached that stage at Euro 2017, which is why White considers this generation so different to her own.
"In my time when we played in 2009, it was a completely different gulf between the two teams that matched up in that final," she said. "The mindset of these current players is that they won't fear the Germans like we did. We know the history, but it's not history of recent times as the Germans haven't got to the latter stages of tournaments as England have recently."
The goals of the likes of Mead and Alessia Russo have been crucial, but it has been Sarina Wiegman's influence as England's manager that has most impressed White.
Wiegman, who led the Netherlands to European glory five years ago, only joined up with England in 2021 but has made a tremendous impact.
White said Wiegman has been "the key", adding: "I've always felt that the last bit of the puzzle was the manager who's won something.
"Because when you're in the changing room, and you're going through all the tactics, knowing that that coach has won something, I just think that's invaluable."
After a goalless first half, Spain snatched the lead in the 54th minute when Esther Gonzalez found space in the penalty area and finished low and hard across Mary Earps in the English goal.
With their tournament hanging in the balance, Ella Toone was subbed on with half an hour to play, and she proved to be the hero when she got on the end of Alessia Russo's squaring head to stab in the equalising volley from the edge of the six-yard box in the 84th minute.
Locked at 1-1, extra time was needed, and England made sure their fans would head home happy after Georgia Stanway found what would turn out to be the match-winner in the 96th minute, firing a rocket across the Spanish keeper into the top-left of the goal from well outside the penalty area.
Speaking to the media after the result, Bright talked about finding a different way to win, knowing it would be a very different contest than their recent drubbings of Northern Ireland (5-0) and Norway (8-0).
"It's all part of the game, and you're gonna come up against different challenges," she said. "Again, we knew that they were going to have a lot of the ball.
"We were gonna have to find that different way of winning, and having been in games where, like I said, we scored a lot of goals. But it's about being clinical when you get those chances. I thought the players that were on and the players that came on did that excellently.
"I think, obviously, we were dealing with not having the ball a lot, and having to stay really tight defensively. Then knowing when we got the ball, it's how we use it, and how we can punish them and work towards their weaknesses.
"But yeah, it was just a matter of trying to rush a little bit without kind of turning it over and making mistakes, and obviously, we knew we had that pressure.
"I think everyone is aware of the clock in the game and the score line. But yeah, I think for us, we stuck together as a team, knew what we needed to do, and executed it."
Bright also touched on the atmosphere inside Amex Stadium, saying they feel the pressure, but are "loving every minute".
"[It was] probably one of the biggest [nights of my career] to be honest," she said. "Just with it being our home Euros and, you know, having all the fans there and the atmosphere is incredible.
"Everyone keeps talking about the pressure that's on us, but we embrace every moment, we're embracing the fans.
"There's always pressure in football at the highest level, so we've all dealt with that in the past, and yeah, we're just loving every minute."