LIONESSES’ LYON LOSS HURT BUT FUTURE FULL OF HOPE
England inspired a generation... now the hard work really starts
THERE were positives and negatives aplenty from England’s World Cup campaign that ended so cruelly in Lyon on Tuesday night.
Sportsmail reviews a rollercoaster campaign and asks, what next for Phil Neville’s Lionesses?
ATTACKING FORCE
ENgLaNd have left their mark on the World Cup in the best way imaginable, with a capacity to create and score wonderful goals to inspire a new generation of young supporters.
Lucy Bronze’s sublime strike against Norway was eclipsed by the 14-pass move from deep which cut apart argentina.
We’ve not seen the best of Nikita Parris, but her partnership with Bronze was still productive.
Neither Toni duggan nor Fran Kirby were at their peak, but England found other ways to score — around 15 different setpiece routines revealed their attention to detail.
Unobtrusively, 32-year- old Jill Scott contributed hugely again, arriving late in the box to score against Japan and creating for others with her impressive touch. She will be extremely difficult to replace by the next tournament.
The good news for Euro 2021, when England will be hosts, is that there are other players coming down the tracks to challenge the imperious Ellen White, who has scored six in five games here.
No 10 georgia Stanway is on the cusp of greatness. Look out, too, for Tottenham Hotspur’s 20- year- old Rianna dean, 17- year- old Lauren James of Manchester United — sister of Chelsea loanee Reece James — and 20-year- old Ellie Brazil of Brighton. all are coming through the England youth ranks.
COLOURFUL PHIL
PHiL NEviLLE has surpassed expectations in the way he has helped build a collective and instilled self-belief with a blend of discipline, huge enthusiasm and self-deprecation.
Making no pretence that he is on a journey of discovery, too, his colourful public discussions of the team helped reach new audiences. ‘He’s a great communicator,’ his boss Baroness Sue Campbell, the Fa’s head of women’s football, said yesterday. ‘ One of the reasons i was very excited about him was that he is a student of the game, wanting to learn.
‘His open-mindedness and ability to learn make him very authentic. He is a very authentic leader.’
There has been an element of his old guru Sir alex Ferguson about Neville at times, with his inference that there was a ‘ virus in the camp’, his insistence that the americans breached etiquette by scouting the team hotel, and his memorable dismissal of Raymond verheijen’s trash talk all deflecting attention from his players.
His top-of-the-head utterances have been colourful and memorable. He said he’d told his players to embrace the semi with ‘both arms, both legs, all your body’. all of this has helped make England popular in France and at home.
IMPROVED PSYCHOLOGY
WHEN England reached the 2015 World Cup semi- finals, there was an unmistakeable sense that they were just pleased to have got that far. This team felt it was their entitlement and former England internationals point to the way Neville has instilled belief that didn’t exist in the past. They really did believe they could beat the United States.
‘ it was the first time we came into a game against the americans believing we could beat them,’ said former England international goalkeeper Rachel Finnis-Brown.
‘ That’s one of the key things they have instilled, in training, through body language, verbal language. all those things have helped create change.
‘You see how calm they were, how assured. That has all been down to change in psychology and it’s a huge, huge shift. Everybody 100 per cent knows what Neville wants and what is expected. ‘ When there are grey areas, it’s difficult. it is important because what’s a winning mentality and how do you get it when you haven’t won anything? ‘ You have to create it from within.’
DEFENSIVE LEAKS
iT has been a campaign which delivered Steph Houghton the acclaim she deserved, with Martin Keown’s comparisons with Bobby Moore on these pages speaking for themselves.
But England looked defensively vulnerable at times. Millie Bright’s dismissal on Tuesday night concluded a tournament in which she looked troubled in possession and prone to errors.
demi Stokes impressed against Norway but was chasing shadows against america’s Tobin Heath.
Bronze was at fault for america’s first goal. ‘ That’s not something i’m used to, i’m used to being defensively solid,’ she admitted.
The defence was exposed by England’s alarming tendency to sacrifice possession to opponents with wayward passing in front of their own defence. Neville’s ‘nonnegotiable’ strategy of playing out from the back is commendable only if possession is protected. abbie McManus and Leah Williamson will come through the ranks now and Walsh, whose tendency to lose the ball when receiving it on the half turn, will improve. But England must tighten up if they are to eclipse the US.
THE AMERICANS ARE WAY AHEAD ...FOR NOW
FOR all the positives, events in Stade de Lyon revealed the gulf between England and the likely World Cup winners. Some perspective is needed. For 20 years, girls’
soccer has been integral to the mainstream Us school curriculum and the college sports scholarship system which attracts huge resource and crowds. Many of the England women’s team had to play in boys’ teams to get some football.
When Campbell spent a year as visiting professor at the University of Maine, she looked at american players with female-specific elite strength and conditioning work and wondered, ‘ How do we compete with this?’
Campbell said yesterday. ‘These women came through their schools with soccer. In some schools in america they get soccer every day of the week. In some of our schools we’re lucky if they get a few hours. You can’t start developing this three-quarters of the way through their development. You have to start at foundation stage. Until we get the foundations right, we are playing catch-up.’
England is only one year into having a fully professional domestic league, but is getting closer.
‘ Yes’, said Campbell to the question of whether the gap can be closed by the 2023 World Cup.