England, the World Cup’s Great Survivor, Runs Out of Lifelines

Until Sunday evening, England met each powerful scenario it fell into throughout the Women’s World Cup the identical approach: It discovered a approach out.

When it arrived on the match with out three injured stars, it rapidly discovered a brand new one, and when it misplaced her to a suspension after the spherical of 16, it discovered the way to win two video games with out her, too. When it fell behind towards Colombia within the quarterfinals, it scored a tying aim nearly instantly. When it got here head to head with elimination within the semifinals towards Australia, up towards each the house workforce and a complete stadium after striker Sam Kerr erased England’s early lead, it held quick and delivered two extra targets to submit a convincing win.

So it was comprehensible when, within the seventieth minute of the World Cup closing towards Spain on Sunday in Sydney, Australia, England Coach Sarina Wiegman thought her workforce had discovered an escape hatch but once more. Goalkeeper Mary Earps had simply saved a Spain penalty kick. England had a lifeline. Surely, Wiegman thought, it will discover a new approach out.

“I thought, ‘Now we are going to score a goal,’” Wiegman stated. “‘Now we are going to score a goal and get to 1-1.’ But we didn’t.”

The aim by no means got here, the minutes ticked away, after which it was over: England had misplaced to Spain, 1-0. Lucy Bronze, who had misplaced possession of the ball within the moments earlier than Olga Carmona scored Spain’s aim, lay face down on the grass, alone in her grief. All round her, the Spanish gamers celebrated and her teammates stood in surprised silence, left with no place to go till that they had collected the silver medals no participant needs.

Afterward, because the England gamers filed again to their locker room, to face the questions, they struggled to explain what had simply occurred. Several gamers, nonetheless with tears of their eyes, declined to cease. Defender Jess Carter paused when requested about Spain’s game-winning aim, looking for a transparent sufficient reminiscence to have the ability to reply. Millie Bright, the England captain, couldn’t fairly reply affirmatively when requested if Spain deserved the trophy.

“If we put the ball in the back of the net, it’s game on — it’s a different story,” Bright stated. “But it’s football. It’s so hard.”

For the primary half of the ultimate, Spain was unquestionably the higher workforce. England had an early shot from ahead Lauren Hemp that pinged the crossbar, however Spain dominated each possession of the ball and the sport’s greatest scoring possibilities. Spain prevented England from having the ability to push the ball upfield, and by creating one-on-one matchups with defenders because it pressed ahead, it put the Lionesses, one of many match’s most organized and tactically sound groups, on their heels.

“The way we played in the first half,” midfielder Georgia Stanway stated, “was not England standard.”

England nonetheless had time, although, to discover a approach out. Wiegman switched formations at halftime, swapping a defender for ahead Chloe Kelly and inserting Lauren James into midfield, and the strikes instantly modified the dynamics.

Kelly, including power and pace on the surface, and James, one in all England’s greatest gamers earlier than her two-game suspension, have been quickly creating possibilities. But the aim England wanted so desperately, the one which may prolong the sport and put Spain on its heels, by no means got here.

Spain was one of many groups that England defeated on its option to successful the European Championship final yr. But if there was one takeaway from this World Cup, it was that the extent of play within the ladies’s sport continues to rise, in tandem with the rising assist and funding in ladies’s skilled leagues. England was the favourite coming into the ultimate. But Spain provided a special problem this time, and it had England on the again foot nearly from the opening whistle.

This time, Spain received the aim it wanted to take the lead. This time, Spain held its nerve after Earps saved Jenni Hermoso’s penalty kick with 20 minutes left. This time, it was England left to grapple with the devastation of coming one win in need of holding the trophy its gamers have coveted for his or her whole enjoying careers.

They have been nonetheless processing all of that as they waited on the sector to gather their runner-up medals, an agony that, for greater than half an hour, gave them a front-row seat to the celebration that they had wished so badly to have for themselves.

While they waited, Wiegman gathered her gamers and reminded them that they need to nonetheless be proud, that that they had come up to now and so shut. It was a speech that not everybody was prepared, or in a position, to listen to. Bethany England stated it was too loud to make out each phrase. Stanway admitted that she was too upset to hear.

Now, the England gamers will return to their membership groups, and this fall they’ll flip their consideration to qualifying for subsequent yr’s Paris Olympics, the subsequent main competitors on the calendar. But the magic of the World Cup, and in addition the merciless actuality of dropping the ultimate, is that the sting received’t go away quickly.

Wiegman is aware of that feeling higher than anybody: She was on the dropping facet when the Netherlands fell to the United States in France in 2019. Now she should face the lengthy wait for an additional shot another time.

“Four years,” she stated, “is a really long time.”