Category: USA women’s football team

Under an almost full moon, England poured a few more golden rays of sunshine. As homecomings go, this ticked most boxes: a celebratory atmosphere; the national stadium near enough full; the palpable sense of occasion as the tube station funnelled its public down on to Olympic Way. Then there was the rip-roaring spectacle delivered inside and the invigorating sense that, while the Lionesses’ summer heroics were its springboard, there is still no telling exactly where they will land.

The answer may be known by 20 August, when the World Cup’s two best teams will square off at Stadium Australia. It is hardly outrageous to suggest we were watching them here. England and USA served up a sometimes alarmingly open, consistently full-throttle affair that simultaneously meant nothing and everything. Even if no prizes were on offer, there in plain sight was the proof that England’s sights should be limitless: that, in delivering only their third win in 19 iterations of this fixture, they have set down a marker at a time of seemingly inexorable momentum.

It was an evening to bathe in the glow, but also one on which to understand the shadows. Before kick-off a dozen of the first-ever official England women’s team from 1972, led by their captain, Sheila Parker, were presented with caps in the home dressing room. Holding their new awards, given out 50 years too late, they formed a guard of honour for their modern-day successors and it was impossible to escape the poignancy. Every step forward taken by this team, by this sport, feels all the more necessary and loaded due to the neglect that came before.

How Parker and her contemporaries must have delighted in the speed and imagination of England’s front four, who ran an understrength USA defence into the ground and deserved the breaks that brought their goals. How they must have admired the class of Keira Walsh, star of the European Championship and now the world’s most expensive player, who drew cheers in the 24th minute when she picked Rose Lavelle’s pocket and broke the lines with yet another crisp pass to her attackers. And how they would have delighted in the moment if Lucy Bronze, blasting inches wide, had put a cherry on top after a counterattack that offered a showreel of this team’s strengths in 10 exhilarating seconds.

The visitors brought plenty of their own despite having darker clouds to navigate. Only Vlatko Andonovski’s players will know whether the Yates report, which cast a shocking light on abuse and sexual misconduct in their domestic game upon its release on Monday, affected their collective or individual performances on the night. Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn had been among those to acknowledge the emotional burden it had placed in the buildup and the surest conclusion is that, with or without the bleak context, they performed outstandingly too.

If Sophia Smith, the 22-year-old from Portland Thorns who led the line thrillingly, had converted an early chance they would have established the kind of early cushion they rarely give up. But Smith atoned for that with a precise equaliser and came close to repeating the trick after half-time with a shot that trickled wide. Amid stiff competition she was the best forward on the pitch and alongside the even younger Trinity Rodman, whose cruelly disallowed goal was wonderfully worked, stated overwhelmingly that no eras ended upon Riem Hussein’s full‑time whistle.

When that sounded, Walsh raised her arms aloft in triumph. It was important that England kept the wave rolling here and the sound when Lauren Hemp opened the scoring, at the end of a breathless first 10 minutes, bore respectable comparison to the din when Chloe Kelly wrote history against Germany back in July from similar range. The crowd of almost 77,000 were engaged throughout, whether gently goading the visiting fans’ chants or baying for yet another VAR decision to go their way, correctly as it happened.

The way to pack out huge stadiums is to play with quality, intent, a taste for drama and to win through all of those. Only 14,389 were present in Milton Keynes when the USA last visited England in February 2015: an awful lot has gone right since then.

Plenty more must continue to if past and lingering ills are to be banished for good. The teams stood behind a banner reading “Protect the players” after walking out, in pointed reference to the lack of safeguards identified in Sally Q Yates’s findings. It seems inevitable that this sport will conduct further reckonings with itself. The 90 minutes that followed offered a brief antidote: a celebration of the reason anyone takes it upon themselves to do this at all.

As Sarina Wiegman and her squad communed with their support one more time, it was easy to appreciate that anew. Whether or not this was an appetiser for the final of Australia and New Zealand 2023, that tournament will raise the bar yet further if it offers many spectacles of similar standard. This was a vibrant reprise of everything that saw England captivate an entire nation; it was also the timeliest reminder that football should offer wholesome, unfettered fun.

On a night dominated by a moving show of unity, the Lionesses edged the USA winning a thrillingly open battle between the European champions and world champions 2-1 to main Sarina Wiegman’s unbeaten run as England manager.

England’s win over the World Cup holders was their first since an 89th-minute goal from Ellen White gave them victory in the 2017 SheBelieves Cup, and it was only their third ever win against the Americans in 19 games.The gap though is closer than ever, with the Football Association investing heavily from top to bottom in a bid to bridge it.

This fixture always matters, but it was dripping with extra poignancy. To mark the 50th anniversary of the first official England women’s match on 18 November, 12 members of the original 1972 squad would take to the field clutching the long overdue caps they had been presented with ahead of the match. While close to 150 former and current players were presented to the crowd at half-time.

The game has come a long way. But the celebrations of just how far women’s football has come, with this fixture the fastest-selling England game – men’s or women’s – at the new Wembley were tempered by moving acknowledgements of just how far there is to go, even in one of the most advanced women’s footballing nations.

The Sally Yates report which found emotional and sexual abuses to be “systemic” within women’s domestic football in the US was published on Monday. In solidarity during a traumatic week for the US women’s national team, all players took to the field wearing teal armbands, the Wembley arch was lit in the colour that represents the campaign against sexual violence, and players stood united behind a “protect the players” banner before kick-off.

There had been questions about whether the US players would take part in these games, with Spain up next in this international window. Head coach Vlatko Andonovski had said that players would be given whatever support they needed and could sit out training, meetings and games as they needed because “this is more than a game”.

However, players, and this US team in particular, are used to playing through the pain and struggle, in the knowledge that we still live in a time where success on the pitch forces hands and change off it.

Both teams were missing key players for the Wembley showdown. Alex Morgan, who has been in electric form, Catarina Macario and Tobin Heath were among the many names to be ruled out through injury before the US squad was even announced, while Taylor Kornieck and Mal Pugh were both withdrawals. For England there was no Alessia Russo or captain Leah Williamson.

Instead of Russo, Lauren Hemp led the line, with Beth Mead and Chloe Kelly either side of her.

For the visiting team, potent young duo Trinity Rodman and Sophia Smith lined up alongside veteran Megan Rapinoe in a front three. That potency was almost demonstrated instantly as Smith swept in on the left but her effort on goal was tame and easy for Mary Earps.

It took 10 minutes for the European champions to put the USA behind for the first time in 22 games. Euros golden ball and golden boot winner Mead was critical, flying forward on the right and swinging a cross into the middle. Centre-back Alana Cook could only propel the ball into the path of Hemp with her sliding body and the Manchester City forward slotted past Alyssa Naeher.

England had the lead but it was a wide open encounter and just shy of the half-hour mark the world champions were back level. Captain Lindsey Horan put pressure on Georgia Stanway as she attempted to collect Millie Bright’s underhit pass and forced the ball to Smith who collected and fired coolly past Earps.

England’s lead was restored four minutes later, with a high foot from substitute Hailie Mace, on in place of injured Emily Fox, catching Lucy Bronze as she bent to head the ball and a VAR review awarding a penalty and handing Mace a yellow card. Stanway converted from the spot, firing low into the corner with Naeher having gone the wrong way.

The Americans could feel aggrieved that they were not back level before the break. Smith nutmegged Bright on the break sending the ball across the box, Rapinoe backheeled it past Bronze and Rodman’s low shot flew past Earps. It was a beautifully worked goal, but VAR ruled Smith was very narrowly offside in the buildup.

There was little to separate the teams after the break, but both threatened. With 63 caps between the four starting players in the US backline prior to this match, and Williamson absent for England, both defences looked fallible.

There was late controversy, as a penalty awarded for handball was overturned, with the ball ricocheting off Hemp’s bum rather than her arm.

The final throes for both sides would yield no reward for either side. With the World Cup nine months away England can take heart from a win against the competition’s holders, while the United States can take heart from getting through the week, and the game.

Midway up the stands inside Wembley, the signage flashes with “European v world champions”. The buildup to England’s showdown with the USA has been overshadowed, rightly, by the weight of the findings of the Sally Yates report into abuses in women’s football in the States and the burden of it on the US players, but the narrative of the match itself is hugely exciting.

The USA have been the world leaders in women’s football for a long time. The gap to the rest has been vast, but it is closing. Megan Rapinoe went as far as to say on Thursday that she feels “there isn’t really a huge gap any more and there hasn’t been for a long time”.

Why, though, has a gap existed for so long despite continued and increasing investment in England?

There are a number of reasons why the US have led the way. Most significant was the introduction of Title IX, part of the education amendments to the Civil Rights Act in 1972. Title IX decreed that government-funded institutions could not discriminate on the basis of sex. It meant educational institutions had to rebalance their funding of sports programmes: to continue large backing for key men’s sports such as American football and basketball meant putting the same amount into women’s sports.

That has created a player pool that is the envy of the world, with scholarships allowing players from the US, and across the globe, to receive a high-quality education and play incredibly competitive football. With that has come a culture of competitiveness and expectation – which contrasts greatly with the gratitude culture that has existed in England. In the US, women have a right to play football and for it to be properly funded, and they expect it to be.

The US women’s national team, and the various professional leagues that have been formed over the years, have been built on top of this base of talent and support – although as recent investigations show, the system is very far from perfect.

Women’s football in the US also benefits from not being hidden in the shadows of the men’s game. Football is not the number one sport for men, and that has given the women’s game space to flourish.

Seven players in this England camp and the manager, Sarina Wiegman, have played in the US and experienced what makes it so different.

“I was there for one year, a long time ago, as I’m really old,” said Wiegman, with a characteristically wry smile. “It was life-changing. We had a really top sports environment with lots of great facilities. I really enjoyed it. That winning mentality really came across. I was 19 at the time. I thought: when I go back to the Netherlands I hope there comes a time that we have the same facilities and environment there, as I really loved it. It influenced me in my development as a person.”

Lucy Bronze, who, like Wiegman, played under the renowned University of North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance, said: “I think it had probably one of the biggest influences at an important time in my career. When I was younger, in Europe, in general, women’s football wasn’t really a huge spectacle. Whereas in America, everything was amazing. Going out there and playing at college for a year was a dream come true and made me realise that’s really what I wanted to do.

“Playing with the players there who went on to be so successful at such a young age, at 17, it had a huge influence on me as a player and a person. Their mentality – learning that at 17 years old – I think that’s what has helped me grow my mentality in an England environment.”

There, Bronze came up against a young Tobin Heath. “Tobin had broken into the US team and was the first player that I really played with who was that world-class standard and I got to go head-to-head, literally head-to-head, with her in training sessions,” Bronze said. “I realised that I need to work a lot harder and push myself if I want to compete against those kinds of players.”

Women’s teams in Europe and across the world, domestic and international, have had to try to find a way to build a base that rivals the US system that allows players to flourish and creates such a huge pool that the best can be skimmed off the top.

The Football Association’s Gameplan for Growth in 2017 started to look at the game in England in this way, with ambitions to build the base as much as it built and invested in the top of the sport. The investment has come and work has been done in growing all areas, from grassroots and school football to the England pathway and the fanbase.

The Lionesses’ success at the Euros in the summer sits on the shoulders of this work. Now, England have depth to rival the US in a way that had not been there before and players are able to play in professional environments from an early age.

The gap isn’t closed. Until the US are toppled by England at a World Cup it cannot be said to have closed. Even then, establishing a player pool as deep as the college system provides in the US is still a long way off.