There’s now real hope England can catch the all-conquering USA
...but club facilities and tactics aren’t good enough
THE New York Times said on Sunday that Football’s Coming Home — a ‘ wry anthem trotted out by England fans every time its team get a whiff of a title’ — had been booming out of the Wembley speakers. ‘Everyone, you will not be surprised, knows the words by heart,’ a writer observed.
The $64,000 question for the new European champions now is whether they can reach the Holy Grail and beat the USA at next summer’s World Cup.
This matters so much. It was Brandi Chastain, USA goalscorer in the 1999 World Cup final which saw the game explode Stateside, that Chloe Kelly evoked by whipping off her shirt after scoring the winner against Germany.
Megan Rapinoe, the ultimate celebrity of the US game, tweeted ‘ Outrageous. Wow’ after Ella Toone’s goal. Yet Toone’s club and country team-mate Alessia Russo turned down a Manchester United contract renewal before the Euros, as there is still an acute feeling within the English women’s game that facilities are nowhere near what they might be.
No one is asking for the wage parity that Rapinoe and her teammates have fought for in the courts, but players still describe Premier League clubs paying lip service to the idea of equal facilities and support structures. It was why Casey Stoney left United in 2021 and now manages in San Diego.
The same frustration is felt by many at academy level, where there is evidence of Under 18s girls training in the previous season’s kit, while the boys run out in the latest line, and no change of kit for some academy girls when they have trained in the rain. This would be unimaginable in the US.
A relatively amateur ethos at many WSL clubs explains why Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal win everything in sight. A New York Times report during the Euros highlighted how most WSL clubs do not employ a single fulltime women’s scout — outsourcing that work to agents instead.
It fell to Vicky Jepson, assistant head coach of Tottenham, to travel around Euros games looking for prospective players. Domestically, Germany and France are years ahead. It is why Georgia Stanway is leaving City for Bayern Munich.
Yet there is an increasingly sophisticated level of thought within the English women’s game about how to develop top players technically. Tommy Walsh, Everton academy director for six years, has developed ideas on how to apply coaching to what makes the female footballer different to the male — including their speed.
‘There’s a 20 per cent difference in terms of how quickly males can cover the ground in relation to females,’ says Walsh. ‘If you are playing out from the back and make a mistake, the male can recover more quickly. If the female player who wins that turnover is trained to see the opportunity, getting the ball into the box rather than taking an unnecessary pass, that is a real opportunity. It’s getting into the mindset that those turnovers, even at the highest levels, tend to happen four or five times in a game.’
Statistically, far more goals in the women’s game are scored within the area and far fewer assists — set-pieces aside — come from wide areas. Walsh believes coaches can adapt styles of play to capitalise.
He is among many who see it as no coincidence that the two sides contesting the final were managed by women who do not simply try to apply a homogenous coaching method. If more men enter the Women’s Super League with more money on offer, it would be a mistake to copy tactical strategies.
The view from within the game is that Sarina Wiegman’s England now match the USA physically.
It was their inferiority in that department which saw them lose to the USA in the 2019 World Cup semi-final, though three years of elite clubs’ approach to strength, conditioning and nutrition has changed the picture.
‘The fact you’re a professional, training every day and not having to juggle that with another job has changed everything,’ says Everton defender Gabby George, whose friendship with Kelly dates to the England player’s time at the club.
Manager Phil Neville warned after defeat by the US that ‘the train has to keep moving forward at a fast pace. If it doesn’t you stand still and people will overtake you’. Yet it is the US team who are at greatest risk of being overtaken now. The iconic Rapinoe, 37, and Alex Morgan, 33, are passing on the baton and it may take the next generation time to bed in.
Though they have just beaten Canada to win their CONCACAF championship and secure a place at the 2024 Olympics, they do not parade the same invincibility. A heavy defeat by Sweden at the Olympics, and by Canada in the same competition, has created uncertainty about coach Vlatko Andonovski, who has been seen at at least three of the Euros games.
Given the very physical aspect to England’s final against Germany, it is significant that some in the US feel the Europeans are ahead of them in the darker arts — not part of a college environment which has built the US strength.
Of course, England will carry the burden of expectation that their status as European champions brings, though Wiegman said she was ready to help with that.
‘At their clubs they are a little bit used to this fame but now it will go to another level. Some will manage it really well, some will need support. It will take time.’
England’s domestic game may take time to catch this wave, but Wiegman seems to be the prime asset as her team hunt down the ultimate opponents.