Howard still recovering from her World Cup trauma
Reading defender opens up about trying to move on from Scotland’s dramatic exit, writes Katie Whyatt
Sophie Howard calls it “the saddest but nicest picture I have”. At the Parc des Princes, in the seconds following Scotland’s exit from the World Cup, the Reading defender has staggered to her older brother, beneath whose protective arm she hides.
Her father, who has flown in from Spain, takes hold of her elbow. Her twin sister, for whom Howard has pictures of Winnie the Pooh characters on her shin pads because “growing up I was Winnie the Pooh and she was Piglet, so every game she’s with me”, has travelled from Germany.
Her host family from her stint in the United States are there. Her mother, grandparents, too. “I knew nothing could happen to me once I went in the stands,” Howard says.
The 3-3 draw with Argentina, which cost Scotland a probable place in the last 16 as one of the four best thirdplaced teams, hit Howard hardest because she felt it was her fault. After 73 minutes, 3-0 up, Scotland were on course to progress. Then Milagros Menendez made it 3-1. A Florencia Bonsegundo shot from distance smacked off the bar for 3-2. Four minutes from time, Howard, only introduced that minute, caught goalbound Aldana Cometti.
There were eight minutes between the tackle and Argentina scoring a third. It took the video assistant referee two minutes to award the initial penalty, saved by goalkeeper Lee Alexander. Then a further five to review VAR again, find that Alexander had jumped off her line and for Bonsegundo to step up.
“The ball went past me, into the player, and my only chance was to slide tackle otherwise she would score,” says Howard, 26, six months on. “My heart rate was so fast when they were going to VAR. It was horrible, the waiting. When Lee saved, we were over the moon. Then one of the Argentina girls made a tackle. In my head I just continued with the game and I thought the second whistle was for that and we were going to take the free-kick. Then it got called back and everyone’s confused, fuming. Pure devastation.”
Bonsegundo scored. Scotland finished bottom. They were out.
“Because I’d played a big role with the tackle, I blamed myself,” Howard says. “All the girls came up and said, ‘Soph, it’s not your fault. You weren’t the only person on the pitch’. But no one really knew what to say.
“We were crying together and shaking our heads because we just didn’t know what had just happened.”
In the build-up to Reading’s Women’s Super League match against Arsenal today, Howard nurses a cappuccino in a coffee shop as she speaks for the first time about what she calls “the worst day of your life, in that particular moment”.
Howard’s Reading team-mate Rachael Laws, with whom she shares a house, has come along so the pair can go Christmas shopping afterwards, but some of this is news to her, too.
“I haven’t really talked about it thoroughly, just to deal with it,” Howard says. “But it’s something I’m going to have to move on from. It’s crazy to think about – the highest moment to the lowest within seconds. I received loads of messages saying, ‘Soph, don’t beat yourself up’. I’m overcritical with my own performances – that’s why I received the messages – but they also said, ‘We know it’s easily said’. And it is. It was a big moment that possibly cost us the game.”
Scotland were aware of the barrage of new rules introduced for this World Cup – “we went through them thoroughly”, Howard admits. The rule of which Alexander fell foul – that goalkeepers must be booked for coming off their line before a penalty – was changed three days later, hardly quelling the feeling that Fifa had used the tournament as a testing ground.
“The change is just the biggest joke,” Howard says. “How can you change a rule within the tournament? For me, they didn’t really think through the rules before they implemented them.”
Howard is now targeting a fourthplace finish with Reading.
That World Cup match is “not at the back of my mind every day”, she says. “When I think about it, that’s when it becomes hard. Deep down, I know it’s not my fault. The tackle’s my fault, but the game’s not. The World Cup was a great experience – and that’s something no one can take away from me.”