England women look to future after latest near miss

LYON: The feeling of crushing disappointment after a semifinal defeat is nothing new for England’s women, who are left wondering when they will take that next step after being knocked out the World Cup by holders the United States.

If the men’s run to the last four of the World Cup in Russia was their best performance in a generation, the Lionesses had been desperate to go one better in France after an agonising exit from the 2015 tournament in the semifinals was followed by a defeat in the last four of Euro 2017.Getting the better of the USA proved beyond England in Lyon on Tuesday as they lost 2-1, although the ending could have been very different had captain Steph Houghton not had a late penalty saved.

The English Football Association’s decision to name Phil Neville as coach last year was not universally applauded at the time. He has since won over many of those who criticised the appointment, and on Tuesday night he insisted that England’s time will come.

“I’d like to think that people can see we are heading in a direction that actually is pretty exciting,” said Neville, who was appointed on a contract through to Euro 2021, which England will host. “We have just got to keep having sustained success and keep building the momentum that we have got.

A remarkable US generation are through to their third consecutive World Cup final, a level of performance that is the result of many more years of investment and of taking women’s football seriously. Neville calls them “the standard-bearers”, and in England they are clearly still playing catch-up, even if the gap is closing — they lost 3-0 the last time the nations met at a World Cup, in 2007.

Work does still need to be done at grassroots level, with a FIFA survey on global women’s football published this week revealing that there are around 120,000 registered female players in England. That remains fewer than in France or the Netherlands, significantly fewer than in Germany and Sweden. In the USA there are 1.6 million.

However, the public has engaged with this tournament like never before. A record 11.7 million watched Tuesday’s game on the BBC.Those levels of interest will not be maintained on a weekly basis by the time the Premier League juggernaut returns, but it is a very encouraging sign.