Daly desperate to rain on USA’s World Cup parade

ENGLAND defender Rachel Daly says she is out for revenge on the USA for rubbing last summer’s World Cup victory in her face. The 28-year-old, who plays for Houston Dash in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL), says the fanfare around the four-time world champions made it more difficult to get over the Lionesses missing out on their first World Cup final. Ahead of facing England’s old foes in their SheBelieves Cup opener here tomorrow night,

Daly said: ‘There were billboards everywhere. Walking into the airport, the first thing I see is, “Welcome home USA, World Cup champions”, and then they do parades, and it’s kind of in your face. ‘You can avoid it when you go home (to England). It might be in the newspapers, but for me, it was literally everywhere. It’s quite hard.’ Many of the USA squad became household names after they followed up their 2-1 semi-final defeat of England by beating Holland 2-0 to win the trophy. And Daly (right) says that attracted fans in their droves to Dash’s home fixtures, though the Harrogate-born player admits she couldn’t help but feel envious that she wasn’t the main attraction. ‘When Seattle came to town, we would get more fans because Megan Rapinoe was playing,’ she said. ‘That was frustrating because more people would show up just for her and I’m thinking, “I wish they were coming for me because we had won the World Cup”. That was tough.’

According to US

Soccer, more than 12,000 tickets have been sold for the opening double-header at Exploria Stadium that sees Spain take on Japan in an earlier kick-off before England face the hosts.