“England,” heads today’s piece by Guardian journalist Jonathan Liew, about the final of the women’s football World Cup, “fell in love with this team but Spain serve up bittersweet ending.” Perhaps, that’s a slight exaggeration but I’m not going to quibble. Millions of people watched in their living rooms and many more went to the pub for the shared experience, which is slowly becoming extinct in today’s multimedia world. Today, I am guessing there will be many ‘water cooler’ moments in offices around the country. “Did you see Mary Earps shouting FUCK OFF! following her penalty save?” is one moment I shall treasure. The history books will reflect on glorious failure, if there is such a thing. In truth, the lionesses lived up to and maybe exceeded expectations and that should be praised and celebrated.
The England performance was reminiscent of the men’s team pre Gareth Southgate. The physical, hard-running and direct style employed out of necessity by head coach Sarina Wiegman worked well against lesser teams, but against the technically superior Spanish, England huffed and puffed and rarely looked like blowing the opposition house down. But for the exceptional goalkeeping skills of Mary Earps and some wasteful Spanish finishing the final scoreline could have been far more emphatic. In the end, no one could seriously deny that the best team by far won.
England’s direct ‘hit-the-channels’ tactic certainly caused problems for Spain, but there is no substitution for quality. When England got desperate long before the end, Wiegman took a leaf out of the Wimbledon Crazy Gang book and sent centre half Millie Bright up top, with predictable consequences. Bright is a centre half for a reason and her skills as a stopper did not translate into those required by an international class striker. We can complain about the Spanish gamesmanship and blame the referee, but these would only be excuses. And if excuses are all we have we will learn no lessons as the women’s game seeks to improve to the level where they could actually win the World Cup.
Hopefully, the lionesses will have encouraged many more girls and boys to play the national game and the politicians who cynically sought gain from the success of the women’s team – and I am talking to you in particular, Rishi Sunak – but at the same time have presided over major cuts in school expenditure which has seen a large decline in children doing any kind of PE at all need to do more. Posing in the local boozer to show what a man of the people you are doesn’t cut it.
As well as increasing levels of participation, I’d like to think more people will support their local women’s teams. The Women’s Super League (WSL) in the 2020/21 season the average crowd was less than 2000 and the FA has a plan to increase crowds to 6000 by 2024. Hopefully, the World Cup success story – and it is a success story – will enable clubs to reach and even beat that figure and I’d like to think that at clubs like my old club Bristol Rovers, the 50 or so loyal fans who currently support the women’s team are joined by many more who got the buzz during this tournament.
Along with better talent spotting and better coaching, English women’s football can improve on a more technical level, with players who are more comfortable on the ball and teams who are less reliant on hard running and the long ball game. The men’s game has managed to do that although unlike the women’s team they haven’t made a World Cup final yet.
There was definitely a bittersweet ending for England who, as we have noted, lost to a technically superior team. But as long as we regard reaching the World Cup final not as an end but as a beginning, next time the women might just win the thing.
