LYON: England coach Phil Neville insisted his team should be proud at having given their “absolute all” at the women’s World Cup after their 2-1 defeat against holders the United States in the semi-finals on Tuesday.
The Lionesses had been hoping to reach a first major final but instead went out in the last four in a third consecutive major tournament, with Steph Houghton’s failure to convert a late penalty costing them dear.
Instead of staying in Lyon for the final on Sunday against Sweden or the Netherlands, England must return to Nice for the third-place play-off on Saturday.
“We’ve no regrets, we lost the game. We’ve come to the World Cup and given our absolute all,” said Neville, who revealed he told his players at full-time to smile rather than cry.
“We’ve had the best 46 days of our lives and we didn’t want it to end and it’s not ended yet. We want to go on Saturday and beat Sweden or Holland.”
England had felt they could compete with the holders, and they recovered from falling behind to Christen Press’ early opener as Ellen White netted her sixth goal of the tournament in the 19th minute.
However, Alex Morgan restored the USA’s lead just after the half-hour mark, and VAR took centre stage in the second half.
White saw another goal disallowed for a marginal offside call following one review, before Neville’s team were awarded a spot-kick following another VAR intervention which deemed White had been fouled by Becky Sauerbrunn.
After Nikita Parris had missed England’s last two spot-kicks, against Argentina and Norway, captain Houghton stepped up in the 84th minute but had her attempt from 12 yards saved by Alyssa Naeher. – AFP
