England

Is this it — the moment we all live to regret? Yesterday, a U.S. team administrator and her boss were apprehended whilst dozily meandering around the private rooms of England’s Fourvière hotel, which the rogue Americans could potentially use as a base of operations should they secure passage to the final at the expense of the Lionesses.

As much of a cliché as this sounds, England is very much a team that is greater than the sum of its parts.

This isn’t to say England has bad players — Fran Kirby and Lucy Bronze are among the best in the world at their respective positions. Yet it would be hard to say the Three Lionesses are the best in the world in any one particular area. There are better passing teams, better possession teams, better defending teams and quicker and stronger teams.

But when England puts it together, there might not be a better team.

The Telegraph has reported that Qin Liang, the England vs Cameroon referee, twice ignored VAR advice in order to prevent the Cameroonian team from walking out during the game.

The first instance was Fran Kirby’s penalty appeal, in which Kirby was taken down with a high challenge in the box by a Cameroonian defender.

England’s 3-0 defeat of Cameroon in the Women’s World Cup Round of 16 today will live long in the memory for all the wrong reasons. The match threatened to descend into chaos on a number of occasions, and it left the players and managers of both nations fuming, albeit for very different reasons. 

The opening goal from today’s Women’s World Cup Round of 16 match between England and Cameroon was an epic tale involving back passes, indirect free kicks and saliva. Yeah, that kind of goal. 

The story begins in the 12th minute, when Cameroon’s Augustine Ejangue cushioned a cross straight towards her own goalkeeper. Instead of clearing it, Annette Ngo Ndom picked it up, putting Cameroon in violation of the back-pass rule. 

For what seemed like an eternity, England could not find a way past Vanina Correa.

The Argentina No. 1 stopped everything the Three Lionesses threw at her, even becoming the first player to save a penalty kick taken by an England player at a Women’s World Cup.

It took, in the end, a perfect piece of play from England to finally get past Correa, resulting in a hard-fought 1-0 victory over Argentina in Group D action on Friday. 

Vanina Correa made huge save after huge save against England, finishing with six stops and a career’s worth of highlights. 

Over six million UK viewers tuned in to watch the opening match of Group D at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup between rivals England and Scotland on Sunday, the highest viewership ever for a women's soccer game in the United Kingdom.