Painful lessons pay dividends for England
Resilient Lionesses hungry for the crown, but must first get past defending champs
Four years ago in Edmonton, England kicked itself out of the Women’s World Cup.
Defender Laura Bassett scored an own-goal two minutes into second-half injury time in the semifinal against Japan to knock England out of the tournament.
At the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, England is in the semifinal again, this time facing defending champion United States on Tuesday in Lyon, where the Lionesses will look to finally put their disappointment from 2015 behind them.
“You always take more from losses and bad things than you ever will from winning,” said England defender Lucy Bronze, who was in Edmonton four years ago. “There is no more of a brutal game than to have lost a game the way we did, in a World Cup semifinal of all things.
“I think from that we’ve learned more than anybody could ever learn from any other defeat, or from any other game that we played in, which is why we probably are a little more resilient.
“We’re firm believers in ourselves, we have a coach that believes and the entire FA (Football Association, England’s governing body) believes in us, as does our nation, because we’ve been there before, we’ve had that resilience, and people know how much we care and how much we’ve given to get to the last four and to the semifinal and we want to give more to get to the final.”
Four years ago, Bassett was trying to break up a cross from Japan midfielder Nahomi Kawasumi and ended up poking the ball over her own goalkeeper Karen Bardsley and into the net. It was a devastating way to lose a game with only seconds remaining before extra time.
To its credit, England defeated Germany in the third-place game a few days later.
England has become accustomed to seeing its teams reach the semifinal stage, which is where the men were knocked out of the World Cup by Croatia last year in Russia.
This is the third consecutive time the Lionesses have made it to a major tournament semifinal, also getting there at the European Championship in 2017 before losing to the Netherlands 3-0.
No English team has made it to the final of a World Cup tournament since the men won it at home in 1966. England’s only appearance at a major women’s final was in 2005 at the European Championship, losing 6-2 to Germany.
“I think that’s what we said at the beginning of this tournament: that we’ve had backto-back semifinals, which is an amazing feat for this team and an amazing achievement to be able to do on a consistent basis,” Bronze said. “We’re short of that last step, but we still have that hunger and, especially now, we will have more hunger of all of the teams because we’re the only one of the teams left that haven’t reached a final.
“You look at the Olympics, the Euros and World Cup, the other three teams have all reached finals in recent years, so we probably have that edge where we’re a little bit more hungry for it and we’re a little more destined and wanting to go to a final in that respect.”
Getting to the final at this tournament won’t be easy. The defending champs from the United States are coming off an impressive 2-1 win against host France in a Friday quarter-final in Paris. The Americans are the top-ranked team in the world and it will take something special to dethrone them.
“We have full belief in our squad and the focus is literally just on us, and that’s our mentality,” said England centre-back Millie Bright. “I think we’re all born winners. That’s our mentality. We came here to win the World Cup and that’s still our aim. Obviously, it would be disappointing to lose, and as players, we would see that as potentially a failure.”
England has played well getting to the final four. It finished first in Group D, defeating Scotland 2-1, Argentina 1-0 and Japan 2-0. England then beat Cameroon 3-0 in the second round and Norway 3-0 in a quarter-final.
England last played the U.S. in March at the She Believes Cup in Nashville. The result was a 2-2 draw. In the buildup to the World Cup this year, England’s only losses came to Canada and New Zealand.
England believes it has a team capable of beating the U.S. and winning the tournament, with either Sweden or the Netherlands awaiting in the final.
If anything, England is likely the only side in the tournament that can match the speed, strength and physicality of the United States.
“Our mentality is to win it, and anything less, we’d be disappointed in ourselves,” Bright said.
“Hopefully, that’s not going to be the case.”