Lionesses Roar to the Semis!

I’m one of many football fans to admit they didn’t know much about the women’s game before this tournament, and one of many to happily state that they’ll be tuning in to the WSL at the very next opportunity. 

Thanks to a mountain of University work, I only briefly saw the group stage of this tournament, but thankfully by the quarter final I had a chance to watch one of our games from start to finish. We were playing the home nation; which is understandably a somewhat intimidating prospect when virtually the entire stadium wants you to lose.

But you wouldn’t have known – from start to finish, our ladies went for it, and had a two goal cushion within twenty minutes. 

You could see the belief, the confidence, and the desire on every one of their faces. We had the players and we were showing the world what we can do. We were unlucky not to increase our lead towards the end of the game, with only one goal in it and a very nervy last few minutes in store. But we held on, and booked our place in the semis to face the reigning world champions, Japan. 

I think a question on many people’s lips during this tournament was – WHY can’t the men’s team perform like this?! England Women have dispelled the myth that purely pulling on an England jersey doesn’t serve to suddenly have a psychological effect on the ability these players show week in, week out in their domestic leagues. 

Is money the problem? We can all accept that it would be much easier to leave the field as losers knowing you’re still getting a few hundred grand at the end of the week, regardless. 

I grew up watching the so called ‘golden generation’ of our national side in the men’s game, including the likes of Scholes, Beckham, Lampard and Gerrard in their prime.  After a few failures at major tournaments, we ended up cheering on these so called World Class stars out of hope rather than expectation.

Yet, I celebrated Fara Williams's equaliser on Thursday morning as if Harry Kane had just thundered one in from thirty yards on the last day of the season, to put my beloved Spurs back into the Top Four. That is how far the women’s game has come, virtually overnight. 

We were thirty seconds from taking the reigning world champions to Extra Time, and throughout the entire game, our ladies had made them look ordinary.

Laura Bassett deserves a pat on the back. You could almost hear an entire nation gasp as her last-ditch interception had a desperately unfortunate run-in with lady luck, and bounced over the line. But she did what she had to do, and that was to stop the opposition getting the ball. Nobody can blame her for that. She had a superb game. 

Laura, our whole nation salutes you.