United greats of America
MEGAN RAPINOE saluted her “crazy” United States team-mates after helping them win the World Cup for a record fourth time by beating Holland in Lyon yesterday.
Rapinoe’s second-half penalty and a strike from Rose Lavelle secured victory for the defending champions.
And it left Rapinoe, who won the Golden Boot and also took the Golden Ball award for the tournament’s best player, almost lost for words. Rapinoe is only the second player in history to start three Women’s World Cup finals, after Germany’s Birgit Prinz.
She is also the first player to score a penalty in a Women’s World Cup final, as well as being the oldest scorer in a final at 34 years and two days.
Asked what made the team so special, she said: “We’re crazy – that’s what makes us special.
“We just have no quit in us. We’re so tight and we’ll do anything to win. It’s unbelievable.
“Just to know all of the people in our group that put in so much work, obviously the As the dust settled on the Lionesses’ World Cup campaign, the head coach says he wants them to nail the rules surrounding the offence.
For the second England match in succession in Nice on Saturday night, VAR played a significant part.
Ellen White thought she had staked a claim for the Golden Boot after appearing to equalise only for it to be ruled out because the ball had struck her hand during a tussle with Sweden’s Linda Sembrant. That came just four days after White had seen a strike chalked off for offside against the USA. While Neville said he had no argument with that law, he wants them to clarify the other.
He said: “Handball is the big problem. It wouldn’t surprise me if FIFA have a look at it after this World Cup and tweak the wording. “The prime example for me is the penalty we got against Scotland. And the goal disallowed today that was deemed to be handball. There’s a grey area between what is unnatural and the silhouette – even I don’t understand it. If you look at the goal we scored against Scotland, if you were Jen Beattie, she’s thinking, ‘That’s never handball’. Ellen today was thinking the same. And she had the Golden Boot on the line. It’s cruel.
“So we probably need to ask, ‘What is handball?’
“Today, the Swedish defender came across, the ball was there, could you see if Ellen had touched it?
“I feel sorry for the person giving that. I thought, ‘It’s a minefield, this handball one’ and it will continue to be so. Because if you abide by the law of common sense you are going to get so many inconsistencies.
“It has to be black and white. I think in this tournament they have applied those black and white rules.
“And they have been implemented to the letter of the law. So, when Ellen White’s goal was disallowed against the USA whether it was a toe, a foot or an elbow, you cannot argue.
“You can’t speak to the referee after and say, ‘That wasn’t offside’. It was. It takes away all the controversy.”
Neville also hinted the law changes might bring about a change in coaches’ behaviour on the touchline.
He said: “The hurt is if you think about the goal Ellen scored the other night and the one she scored today. We scored, we celebrated, we had done silly dances down the line.
“We’re thinking to ourselves as a coaching team, ‘Right, how are we going to win the game?’ Then, four minutes later, it’s taken away from you. It’s a horrible feeling.” champions, reaching the final in only their second World Cup, kept themselves in the game as former Arsenal goalkeeper Sari van Veenendaal produced a string of excellent saves.
But the USA, playing in their third consecutive final, continued their reign as the world’s finest side as they added to their titles of 1991, 1999 and 2015.
They laid down a daunting marker in their first match of the competition as they cruised to a 13-0 win over Thailand – the biggest-ever victory at the finals – and lifted the trophy after dumping England out on the way.
Victory for the Stars and Stripes saw their English-born boss Jill Ellis, from Hampshire, become the first coach to lift the trophy twice.
Ellis said: “This is just an amazing group of players, but an even better group of people, just fantastic resilience, just chemistry.
“They’ve put their hearts and souls into this journey and I can’t thank them enough.
“I could barely speak immediately after the game but I told them they had made history and to enjoy it.”
The USA scored 26 goals at this World Cup, the most by a team at a single tournament in the competition’s history
Striker Morgan said: “This team is something special, and to do it back to back is pretty incredible. I’m just proud of this team. Jill Ellis did a great job.”