It was something Lucy Bronze said as she walked towards the exit of the stadium, with blood seeping through one of her socks, that resonated most with this England team, now standing on the brink of history.
Had she ever seen a World Cup final? Bronze was requested. “No,” she replied. “I was playing outside.” And she wasn’t alone. Jess Carter, the defender who has been an unexpected pillar of the team, gave the exact same answer to the same question. “I was probably more playing football than watching.”
There will be a lot of talk about 1966 and all that in the days leading up to Sunday, but Wembley, Hurst and the frustrated attempts to emulate them are no point of reference for these players, who did what they did, reached the pinnacle of a World Cup . finale without the motivation to see individuals like themselves reflected on a TV screen.
It’s only love for this game, for them. Such a love that they have actively sought it out, often in boys’ teams, girls’ teams as they got a little older, traveling many miles to find a place to play. For Bronze it was a three hour round trip from Berwick to Sunderland. For Georgia Stanway, something similar: Barrow to Blackburn.
It would have been gratifying for them to have had the same opportunities as the boys. Just as it would be nice for the 11-year-old girls’ team currently playing at one of North London’s most popular clubs to practice on the artificial pitches, rather than the hard surface of the gym where they rub their knees when they traps. The resources that the government is talking about are not reaching the girls who need them.
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But the trip made this group of England players stronger, protecting them from ego and self-righteousness, keeping them honest, giving them perspective and shutting out the fear that can be so suffocating for those men’s teams who have tried to live to ’66. Carter started the game not play seriously until she was 16. She has perspective. A hinterland.
There was a huge moment here on Wednesday where you were programmed to think, from a very English football perspective, the roof was coming in the semi-final. Australia’s amazing talent Sam Kerr exploded across the surface of the game, took the ball from halfway line to within 25 yards of goal and scored. She rode to England again and again, in a short period of terrible danger.
You can coach and prepare a team until the end of time, but what cannot be learned is the icy belief in such bad moments. A belief that the hours of effort, rehearsal and preparation that players take means knowing they are equipped and have the skills. England had that conviction. They just went back to their trial.
Kerr leveling Australia revealed the brutal danger she posed to England captain and center half Millie Bright, who withdrew, failed to come on, delivered the shot and was punished for it. But within minutes, Bright dropped one of the 40-yard diagonals, which have become part of England’s weaponry, to Lauren Hemp, who bullied Ellie Carpenter into an error and scored. And then Hemp, the mainstay of this team, produced a moment that will be remembered as long as Kerr’s: a reverse pass of quite exquisite beauty to send Alessia Russo in to score.
It helped that Australia was such a one-woman team, with horribly poor defense and terrible final passes at times. It helped that Kerr’s performance from the start seemed to scramble the forwards who had performed in her absence. Die Kerr missed two chances – a header and a shot high over the crossbar.
But England ran the show, silenced the partisan mob, cut Kerr’s supply line, and found that presence of mind at its nadir that deconstructed the age-old English narrative.
Winning last year’s European Championship certainly helped them. “That gave us a lot of confidence,” said Bronze. So is the bumpy journey here – the injuries, tough matches, the red card and suspension imposed on Lauren James, all of which have fostered a siege mentality.
After the match, blood seeped through Lucy Bronze’s (No. 2) socks, to which, when asked how she endured, she replied simply: ‘Australians’
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You had to be there, listening to Bronze stand in her bloody sock, to realize that England really had no plan for Kerr other than to stick to the football they believe will make them winners. “We didn’t have anyone running after Sam Kerr in the game,” she said. “I know she’s a fantastic player, but we have 11 on the field. We just had to play our own game. That’s what we did. And that’s why we won.’
And you probably had to be on the team at the end to feel what this first World Cup final means for players, like Bronze, who have taken the hard yards. She jumped so fast that Wiegman had to urge her to stop. “We have to get ready for the next game. Let the kids do it,” said the coach.
There is one form of equivalence with the English men that they and older players seek – the star on their chests that all World Cup winners wear. “We’d like that,” she said. Bronze planned to have her ankle treated first. So what had caused the bleeding? “I don’t know,” she said. “Australians.”