Women’s World Cup Final: Spain Beats England to Win Its First World Cup
Finishing a difficult year with a dominant performance, Spain won an all-European final and set a new standard for women’s soccer.
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World Cup Final
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Olga Carmona (29’)
Rory Smith
Spain should not have been in contention to win the World Cup. It did not make any sense. Its finest players spent most of the last year on strike. A dozen of them were not invited to the tournament as a consequence. Those that are here are part of a squad held together by an uneasy truce, working under a coach who can count on the loyalty — at best — of a relatively small fraction of his team. These are not the circumstances in which success is forged.
And yet, and yet: Spain is champion of the world, testament to an enduring truth of soccer, of sports. Talent can conquer absolutely anything. It can even take a team, one that had prepared for this World Cup in arguably the worst possible way, to the biggest game of all, the grandest stage, and then sweep it past England, the European champion, the favorite, the game’s new heavyweight, by a single goal, 1-0.
Spain, put simply, shone too brightly to be dimmed: the drive of Olga Carmona, the intelligence of Mariona Caldentey, the burning possibility of Salma Paralluelo and, most of all, the brilliance of Aitana Bonmatí. Bonmatí, the Barcelona midfielder, is the player who, more than anyone else, coaxed and fought and thought her way through the World Cup final, producing a performance that will rightly be considered a masterpiece.
Spain had spent most of the opening 30 minutes of this game painstakingly trying to pry open England’s defense, thoughtfully piecing together moves of intricate beauty and delicate complexity. Alba Redondo should have put her team ahead from one. Paralluelo might have done so with two.
But the breakthrough came not from Spain’s brilliance — or not just from Spain’s brilliance — but from England’s carelessness. Lucy Bronze had wandered into midfield, the ball at her feet, in search of something to do with it. Spain’s players saw what was happening and may as well have licked their lips.
Three of them relieved Bronze of the ball. There was, now, a vast expanse of space — a plain, a savanna, a tundra — on the right side of England’s defense. Teresa Abelleira, brilliantly, picked out Caldentey, drifting unaccompanied into the yawning gap. She waited until Carmona, charging beyond her, was in just the right place. Her pass was weighted perfectly. Carmona’s finish was unerring.
(Hours after Sunday’s game, the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body of soccer in Spain, announced the death of Carmona’s father. No time of death or cause was given. On social media on Monday, Carmona thanked her father for his love and called Sunday the best and worst day of her life.)
Spain deserved its lead. There had been times, in that first half, when it appeared to be putting on a technical clinic. Paralluelo hit the post just before halftime and there was just a sense, as the players departed for the changing rooms, that, perhaps, England had escaped just a little.
England Coach Sarina Wiegman is not the sort to stand on ceremony. Something needed to change, so she changed it. Chloe Kelly, the player who had scored the goal to win the European Championship last summer, and Lauren James, England’s best player in this tournament until a rash red card in the round of 16, came on. There was no time to waste.
Both substitutes made a significant difference, offering an injection of energy, a burst of purpose. Spain, previously so composed, so assured, started to teeter, only to be delivered just when it needed the intervention of fortune.
Keira Walsh gently, involuntarily brushed the ball with a hand as Caldentey attempted to slip past her. After what seemed an interminable delay, the American referee, Tori Penso, decided it was a penalty. Jenni Hermoso had the chance to settle it, to turn the rest of the game into a procession, but her shot was weak, easily smothered by goalkeeper Mary Earps. England had its reprieve.
For the first time in this tournament, it could not make the most of it. Wiegman urged her players forward. Earps did the same. The game ticked into 13 minutes of injury time. Spain started to seek whatever respite it could find: players falling to the floor, desperate to rob the game of whatever momentum it could muster.
England sprinted to take throw-ins and goal-kicks and corners, any and every opportunity to force its way back into the game. It could not find a way. Spain did not buckle. It has been through so much in this tournament, on the way to this tournament. It was not going to let it slip, not when it was so close. In the unlikeliest circumstances, it would have its prize. It would be the champion of the world.
Andrew Das
There’s the trophy lift. Quite a year for Spain, from mutiny to ecstasy. But it has come all the way now, and if the players can put their past problems with Vilda aside, it will be the team to beat in women’s soccer for the forseeable future.
Andrew Das
The Golden Ball, for the tournament’s best player, goes to Aitana Bonmatí, to no dispute. She’s been fantastic. Want to know more? Rory wrote about her ahead of the Champions League final in June.
Andrew Das
Salma Paralluello, Spain’s 19-year-old forward, is honored first, as the tournament’s best young player. She has won the under-17, under-20 and senior World Cups. The Golden Glove, for the best goalkeeper, goes to England’s Mary Earps.
Andrew Das
Jill Ellis, the coach who won the last two World Cups with the United States, carries the trophy out to the hastily erected stage for the awards presentation.
Isabella Kwai
Reporting from London
The many soccer fields surrounding London’s Hackney Marshes Center were filled with athletes playing their weekly Sunday league games, but the girls inside were glued to a screen.
They were groaning, screaming and cheering England’s Lionesses in the world’s biggest game — with hopes that their country’s women would end a six-decade wait to bring a World Cup title home.
Even though that effort fell short in a thrilling, 1-0 loss to Spain, 14-year-old Destiny Richardson saw the match as a reason to be hopeful for the future of women’s soccer in England, which has long marginalized women and girls.
“It’s going to push the sport up for women,” said Destiny, who plays at Impact Football Academy, which focuses on giving players from underprivileged backgrounds a pathway to competing at an elite level. She added, “You want to be there one day.”
Helen Faci, 40, was watching with her 8-year-old daughter, Sofia — just as they had watched nearly every game in the tournament since it began. Faci said she hoped her daughter would take away the values of hard work and teamwork that have been on display.
“Women have never had this chance,” she said. “It’s inspiring for the kids.”
Sofia,who plays in a local community league, was rapt. “I’m excited to see lots of really good players scoring lots of goals,” she said.
After years of underfunding, top English clubs have begun funneling more money into women’s programs, and leagues in London have also picked up the task of encouraging more women and girls to play, both recreational and professionally.
“It’s a catalyst for change,” said Shani Glover, an ambassador for the London Football Association, who helped organize Sunday’s watch party. “Having the women center stage, it shifts the public’s mind-set,” she said.
Glover, who is involved in several efforts to increase the participation of women and girls in the sport, said that she has seen a surge of interest — particularly in Hackney, a borough in London that has received less investment traditionally for female players.
Even in the few days after England won its semifinal, interest spiked in a girls’ soccer workshop that Glover hosted over the weekend.
The Lionesses’ win in the European Championship final last year had already captured the public’s attention, and Glover said that Sunday’s loss would not dim the spotlight the team has put on women’s soccer in England.
“The nation can’t ignore what they’ve done,” Glover said. The Lionesses, she added, should be “immensely proud.”
Juliet Macur
Oh, man, there are some extremely sad faces here among the England fans. Some have their arms crossed on their chests. Others are staring blankly at the field, where their players are now meeting in a big circle. The ones who dressed up as kings or bobbies or lions are looking especially despondent now. I will never forget the teary-eyed man wearing the droopy lion costume. His team was good, but not good enough.
Jenny Vrentas
England’s players are standing in stunned silence. Some, like captain Millie Bright and forward Alessia Russo, have tears in their eyes. After their last two World Cups ended in the semifinals, this one ends one win short — one goal short — of hoisting the trophy.
Constant Méheut
This is it! Spain wins its first ever Women’s World Cup, and the crowd of supporters here in San Pere de Ribes, the hometown of Bonmatí, is jubilant. “Campeonas! Campeonas! Olé, olé, olé!” they chant.
Andrew Das
What a moment for Spain, which revolted against its coach a year ago, remade its team out of the wreckage, and has now stormed to its first World Cup title. A devastating blow for England at the same time, a team that lifted the European Championship trophy a year ago and had hopes of claiming a bigger prize. But Olga Carmona’s first-half goal proves to be her second game-winner in two games, and it is Spain that rules women’s soccer.
Andrew Das
FULL TIME: The ball is saved. The whistle blows. Spain has won the World Cup, defeating England, 1-0.
Jenny Vrentas
Spain’s subs were up off the bench, ready to rush the field. Lucy Bronze is lying face down on the field as Beth England tries to comfort her.
Andrew Das
90′ + 14 Last chance now: Corner for England.
Andrew Das
90′ + 13 In the last moments now. Spain’s bench can sense it.
Andrew Das
90′ + 12 Everyone knows we’re close now. England sends a long ball ahead, Spain has two players down after a foul. They will be in no hurry to recover.
Jenny Vrentas
England hasn’t been desperate all tournament. But as the seconds slip off the clock, you can sense the tension on the field and on the sideline.
Juliet Macur
Another Spain fan is begging the ref, “Keep your whistle in your mouth and blow it.” The game can’t end soon enough for him.
Andrew Das
90′ + 10 England wins a goal kick and Earps races to send it upfield. But Spain quickly wins it, and they’re off again.
Juliet Macur
People rooting for both teams have their phones out to monitor the time they estimate is left in the game. A Spain fan announced that it’s five minutes. An England fan snaps back, “Six!”
Andrew Das
90′ + 9 Spain is battering away, looking for the clincher, and England is doing all it can to prevent one, to keep its hopes alive. But as Spain readies another corner, the Lionesses are running out of hope.
Andrew Das
90′ + 6 Another Spain set piece, more danger for England, more time off the clock. But England clears, and breaks. It is running out of time.
Andrew Das
90′ + 2 Bonmatí sends in Batlle, overlapping on the right, but Earps kicks away her shot at the last moment, keeping England alive. Another corner coming.
Jenny Vrentas
As Madonna sang, England’s only got 13 minutes to save the world (cup final).
Andrew Das
Putellas came on for Caldentey before that big number -- 13 minutes -- went up on the board.
Andrew Das
90′ Spain almost seals it: Paralluelo controls and pushes, feeds Caldentey, and senses Hermoso charging through and pointing to the empty space ahead of her. But an England defender meets the pass and pushes it out for a corner.
Jenny Vrentas
We’ve got 13 minutes of stoppage time here at Stadium Australia. There was just one minute in the first half.
Andrew Das
88′ Putellas stays off, for now. But expect a double-digit number for injury time soon.
Andrew Das
86′ Alexia Putellas is up on the touchline for Spain as Jenni Hermoso is helped off after a collision. But the sub is an England one: Beth England for Ella Toone up front.
Andrew Das
83′ A great one-timed cross by Bronze catches the Spain defense flat-footed. Unfortunately it caught all her teammates flat-footed, too, and Cata Coll wraps the ball safely in a bear hug.
Andrew Das
82′ Greenwood is up and running to the side to change her shirt and get back in the mix, but she’ll finish with her head wrapped like the guy in the Revolutionary War fife and drum band.
Rory Smith
FIFA is using a break in play — everyone should be expecting at least 10 minutes injury time, by the way — to run through some of the game statistics on the big screens. Soccer has had a data revolution, let’s not forget, and FIFA would not want to be considered behind the times. Their selected metrics do vary a bit in usefulness: shots and shots on target are both fairly typical; top chance creators is pretty self-explanatory. I’ve been baffled by “most involved players,” though. What does it mean if Jenni Hermoso has been involved “13 percent”? 13 percent of what? 13 percent of the time? 13 percent of possession? This has been left as a mystery for us all to solve.
Andrew Das
80′ A looooong delay as Greenwood appears more shaken up than first appeared. England will not want to lose her here but she’s flat on her back getting treatment and looking dazed into the night sky. Bronze has brought out a new jersey for her, presumably because of the blood.
Andrew Das
78′ A yellow for Paralluelo, whose elbow appears to open a cut over Greenwood’s right eye as they battled for a header.
Rory Smith
Chloe Kelly has made a real difference for England. She’s given Sarina Wiegman’s team real thrust in attack and — probably just as crucially — she has pinned Olga Carmona, Spain’s left back, into her own half of the field. Lauren James might have been the player England was likely to turn to for inspiration, but it was Kelly who scored the winning goal against Germany to claim the European Championship last summer; she is not afraid of a big moment.
Andrew Das
76′ James shows England what it’s been missing, getting close and forcing a save from Coll, who pushes her shot over the bar.
Andrew Das
Kelly just misses a header on the corner, but England gives away the second chance and now Spain is away again.
Andrew Das
71′ The saved penalty has energized England a bit, and Spain will have to work quickly here to get this game back under control. It has blown leads in both the quarters and the semifinals, remember. A third time would be a disaster.
Juliet Macur
Things here just went from joyful to wildly tense and everyone here is on the edge of their seats. This is going to be a very long and stressful 20+ minutes.
Andrew Das
69′ SAVED! Earps dives to her left and easily saves Hermoso’s penalty.
Juliet Macur
The fans are stamping their feet while waiting for the VAR decision. The floor is rumbling. And the stadium explodes when the penalty is announced for a handball.
Andrew Das
67′ PENALTY! The replays make it look worse for Walsh, who clearly handled the ball as she tried to stop Caldentey’s progress into the area. And Penso took FOREVER to look and discuss it.
After a VAR check, a handball is called against England and a penalty is awarded to Spain 🇪🇸Do you agree with the call? pic.twitter.com/8RbAc9iW5z
Andrew Das
64′ Spain has appealed for a handball after some scrambling by the England defense. Walsh did touch the ball with her hand, directly in from of Penso, who let it go. But now they’re checking VAR...
Andrew Das
Walsh was the one who touched the ball, trying to stop an attacker in the center. Big moment.
Andrew Das
60′ Spain’s first substitution is a defensive one, with forward Alba Redondo coming off for Oihane Hernández, who is more of a defensive presence.
Andrew Das
60′ England is taking full advantage of Chloe Kelly’s fresh legs on the right wing, and she has delivered several crosses already — just the kind of balls that Russo might have wanted, if Wiegman hadn’t taken her out at the break.
Rory Smith
England’s new shape is starting to pose problems for Spain. For the first time all night, Spain is struggling to control the game. Chloe Kelly has injected a little more energy on the right wing; Ella Toone has become much more involved; Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh are winning possession back a little more. It has yet to generate a chance of note, but the momentum of the game has definitely shifted.
Rory Smith
Spain had spent most of the opening 30 minutes of this game carefully, painstakingly trying to pry open England’s defense. Each pass had been selected deliberately, weighted perfectly. Each movement, each run had been chosen from a range of options, and determined the most adroit.
Twice, Spain had come close to a reward: Once, when Alba Redondo scuffed her finish after a fine, sweeping move that encompassed the vast majority of the team, and again when Mary Earps, the England goalkeeper, produced a fine save to deny Salma Paralluelo, the teenage forward drafted into the team for the biggest game of her young career.
England had survived, by the skin of its teeth, only to then present Spain with the exact sort of opening it had craved: Lucy Bronze drifting out of position, the ball at her feet, in desperate search of something to do with it. Spain’s players saw what was happening and may as well have licked their lips.
Three of them relieved Bronze of the ball. There was, now, a vast expanse of space — a plain, a savanna, a tundra — on the right side of England’s defense. Teresa Abelleira, brilliantly, switched the play right into it. Mariona Caldentey waited until Olga Carmona was in just the right place to charge into the penalty area, and passed her the ball. Carmona’s low, hard finish was perfect.
It was rich reward for Spain’s performance in the first half of the World Cup final, what has at times bordered on a technical exhibition. England, to some extent, is fortunate only to be a goal down: Paralluelo hit the post in the final seconds of the half, too, a fierce snapshot, low and quick, threatening to catch Earps by surprise.
England will need to improve — that goes without saying — but Sarina Wiegman, its inventive Dutch coach, will have seen some green shoots of promise. Lauren Hemp has hit the crossbar. Forward Alessia Russo has troubled Spain’s back line. Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh have, at times, been able to inject some purpose into England’s play.
England, the European champion, has found an answer to every question it has been asked at this tournament. This examination, though, is of a different order to anything it has faced so far.
Rory Smith
The World Cup is not the only prize that will be decided in Sydney today. Generally, FIFA will wait until after the game to declare the winners of the World Cup’s five individual awards, the ones that players profess not to care about but which they all make a habit of mentioning volubly and frequently in the years that follow.
Sometimes, those announcements are essentially administrative. Nobody was surprised that Megan Rapinoe took the Golden Ball, for the tournament’s best player, in 2019, or that Lionel Messi did the same in 2022. Some World Cups are, after all, very obviously dominated by one central character. This has not been one of those World Cups, though.
Even with the final only hours away, there is no clear contender as the tournament’s “best” — in the sense of most decisive, most impactful — player. Several Spain players might be contenders: Aitana Bonmati, Mariona Caldentey, Teresa Abelleira. Or it might be England’s Millie Bright, or Georgia Stanway. Kosovare Asllani did more than anyone to guide Sweden to third place. And for all the focus on Sam Kerr, few players have been better to watch than Mary Fowler, Australia’s coming star. Any and all of them could attract the attention and approval of FIFA’s technical committee, the shadowy group that chooses these things.
Not all of their decisions are quite that complex. Japan’s Hinata Miyazawa will likely win the tournament’s Golden Ball, the award handed out to the most prolific goal-scorer.
Four goals in the group phase, and another in the round of 16, should be enough to secure her at least a share of that prize. There are six players in the final who have already scored three times in this tournament — Lauren Hemp, Alessia Russo and Lauren James for England; Alba Redondo, Jenni Hermoso at Aitana Bonmatí for Spain — and it is not impossible that one of them might catch Miyazawa. But it would take a generation-defining individual performance for anyone to overtake her.
Mary Earps, the England goalkeeper, is the leading candidate for Golden Glove, given to the best player in her position, but a compelling case can be made for Sweden’s Zecira Musovic, too.
Salma Paralluelo, who has scored vital goals for Spain in both the quarterfinals and the semifinals, could take the Best Young Player award. James might have stood a chance, too, if the England midfielder had not been sent off in the last 16 against Nigeria, drawing a two-game ban. And if she does not win the main award, Fowler should be a consideration here, too. None of the awards would make up for not at least guiding the co-host to a medal, of course, but still: Everyone likes getting a prize.
Constant Méheut
In Sant Pere de Ribes, a small town of cream-colored buildings to the south of Barcelona, excitement was mounting by the minute as the final neared. Teenagers in Spain shirts and Spanish flags were gradually gathering in a square, splashing water from a fountain as they sang supporters’ songs. Employees of a nearby bar were arranging chairs in front of giant screens that will broadcast the game.
“As in the rest of Spain, there’s a lot of excitement, but here it’s even greater,” said Josep Mestre, who owns of the Penya Barcelonista de Sant Pere de Ribes, a supporters’ bar of the Spanish giant, F.C. Barcelona.
“That’s because of Aitana,” Mestre said, referring to Aitana Bonmatí, the Spanish midfield star, who grew up in Sant Pere de Ribes and started playing soccer locally. Such is the town’s pride in the player that her name has been added to the bar. The local youth soccer club is trying to rename its training center after her.
“We owe her a lot,” said Tino Herrero Cervera, the club manager. Herrero said the club had seen a surge in the number of female players in recent years, drawn by the popularity of Bonmatí and the success of the Barcelona’s women’s team. Since 2014, the number of girls’ teams in the club has jumped 10, from an initial one.
Mestre, the bar owner, said that after Bonmatí won the Champions League with FC Barcelona this season, “all the girls wanted to be soccer players.”
“The club was saturated with applications,” he said.
Several residents said they had followed Spain’s formidable run at the World Cup with excitement. The semifinal, in which Spain beat Sweden 2-1, drew crowds to the bar and, for the final, the town opened the local cinema to broadcast the match. In a country where soccer has long been the preserve of all-powerful men’s clubs, local residents said they were delighted to discover a team of talented female players, and to watch Bonmatí chase her sport’s greatest honor.
“She was always the best,” said Herrero, the club manager. “She beat everyone, including the boys.”
“Now, I just hope she’ll win the World Cup,” he added.
Rory Smith
On Sunday, for the first time, Spain will take the field in a Women’s World Cup final, separated from the sport’s ultimate glory only by another debutante on the grandest stage in women’s soccer, England.
In one light, it is perhaps a slightly underwhelming denouement to a World Cup that has acted as a showcase for the breadth of talent now flourishing across the women’s game. The past four weeks have been illuminated, at various times, by Nigeria and Jamaica, Morocco and South Africa, Colombia and Australia.
That the last two teams standing should be wealthy European nations — and traditional soccer powers — is, though, a wholly fitting indication of the sport’s ascendant reality.
The axis of women’s soccer has been tilting inexorably toward Western Europe for some time. As Jessica Berman, the commissioner of the National Women’s Soccer League, put it in Sydney on Friday, “The game has leveled up.” The presence of Spain and England in a World Cup final is the culmination of that. It is hard not to read it as some sort of watershed, the moment one era shifted into another.
But to assume the job is complete would be a mistake. The investments by Spain and England have not been replicated elsewhere, and there is still much to do to cement women’s soccer as a force.
A major review of the state of women’s soccer in England, for example — led by the former player Karen Carney and published this summer — found that a “major uplift in investment” was required across the game if it was to “fulfill its potential.”
“Despite the positivity and recent successes, the women’s game still finds itself in a start-up phase and a financially vulnerable position,” Carney wrote.
Andrew Das
Spain is ready to go: It released its lineup almost two hours before kickoff, and the only change is notable. But so is England: It wasn’t far behind.
Part of that might be that neither team had any surprises in their lineups. The most notable choices, in fact, are two players who are NOT starting.
England’s team is unchanged from the semifinals, meaning Lauren James, a starter who missed the last two games because of a red-card suspension for stamping on a Nigerian opponent in the round of 16, will be on the bench to start. But so will Alexia Putellas of Spain, the reigning Ballon d’Or winner as world player of the year. She sits after a disappointing semifinal in favor of the tournament’s breakout Spanish star, Salma Paralluelo.
She slots in up front in its starting XI:
Cata Coll; Olga Carmona, Laia Codina, Irene Paredes, Ona Batlle; Jenni Hermoso, Teresa Abelleira, Aitana Bonmatí; Mariona Caldentey, Salma Paralluelo, Alba Redondo.
👤 ¡ESTA ES LA DISPOSICIÓN!😍 Así formará España para disputar la final de la Copa del Mundo.#JugarLucharYGanar I #FIFAWWC pic.twitter.com/rjUxv771kp
England is visual form here, with outside backs Rachel Daly and Lucy Bronze listed as midfielders in a 3-5-2:
Mary Earps; Jess Carter, Millie Bright, Alex Greenwood; Lucy Bronze, Georgia Stanway, Keira Walsh, Ella Toone, Rachel Daly; Lauren Hemp, Alessia Russo.
Your #Lionesses for the final! 💙 pic.twitter.com/ObVQ0Y1BKW
Andrew Das
Spain’s goals at the World Cup have come in multiples — three against Costa Rica, five against Zambia, five more against Switzerland — and they have come in the nick of time, from Salma Paralluelo against the Netherlands and Olga Carmona against Sweden.
(That 4-0 thumping at the hands of Japan? It seems as inscrutable today as it did that day more than two weeks ago. But, Spain will happily point out, that hardly matters now.)
England’s path to the final, meanwhile, was curiously bereft of goals at times. Narrow wins over Haiti and Denmark before a breakout 6-1 win over China. But then a scoreless draw with Nigeria was settled only in penalty kicks, and a comeback victory against Colombia was marred by a red card for Lauren James.
A win over Australia in the semifinals was the breakthrough at last, with England showing off its offense, its defense, its grit and its experience in 90 thrilling minutes that sent the host nation out.
“That may be the quiet strength of these England players,” Jenny Vrentas of The Times wrote after the Australia game. “They have won in different ways this tournament, changing their tactics to suit their opponents, adapting on the fly when those tactics aren’t working, holding teams off until someone, somehow, conjures a goal.”
Rory Smith
By whatever scale you choose to measure, this has been the largest Women’s World Cup in history: breadth of entrants, depth of talent, height of achievement, volume of observers, width of impact. Now, though, that amounts to nothing more than the wake. All that’s left is this.
By Sunday night in Australia, there will be a new women’s world champion. For the first time, that status will be bestowed on either England or Spain, both making their debuts in the final. Whichever way it falls, it will represent the advent of Europe — or, at least, the moneyed major leagues of Western Europe — as the game’s pre-eminent force. This is the culmination of one journey, and the start of another.
It feels, instinctively, as if England should be the favorite to take that final step. It’s not just that Sarina Wiegman’s team is unbeaten in this tournament. It’s that it is the reigning European champion, too, the taste of that victory last summer still fresh. It’s that, while injury has robbed England of a handful of its best players, the squad is not in a state of simmering enmity with its coach. It’s that it is not held together by some uneasy, and distinctly temporary, truce.
England’s advantage is sufficiently slender, though, that the final outcome may yet be affected by how the dice are rolled. Both coaches had major selection decisions to make. Wiegman had lost Lauren James to suspension for both the quarterfinal and semifinal; her replacement, Ella Toone, opened the scoring against Australia on Wednesday. Wiegman had decided to stand by her: Toone has kept her place, with James starting the final on the bench.
Jorge Vilda, her Spanish counterpart, had an even more delicate selection. Alexia Putellas, the player they call la Reina (the Queen), started in Spain’s semifinal win against Sweden, but seemed more than a little out of sorts, a spectator to the game rather than much of a participant. She is still, as Vilda has consistently pointed out, recovering from the knee injury that cost her much of the past year of her career.
It was only when she was replaced, by the dynamic Salma Paralluelo, that Spain had the impetus to trouble Sweden. Paralluelo, 19, has been one of the breakout stars of this competition. On form, on impact, she should start the final, and she will. But expect Putellas to play a role: Her experience, but also her status, her quality and — not irrelevant — the fragility of Spain’s collective morale, means she can still play a key role as a substitute, especially if the match needs a game-changer late.
It is not impossible that the game will turn on those two choices. There is, in truth, very little between these teams. England carries more menace. Spain possesses greater gifts. This has been the biggest, the broadest, the deepest, the widest World Cup in history. The differences, now that all that remains is here, are very small indeed.
Rory Smith
Few teams arrived in Australia and New Zealand with more pedigree than Spain. Jorge Vilda’s team, after all, boasts not only Alexia Putellas, the two-time Ballon d’Or winner, but also Aitana Bonmatí, the midfielder regarded as her heir apparent. They are two of nine members of the squad drawn from Barcelona, European club soccer’s unquestioned powerhouse.
No team, though, landed in quite such a fragile state. Last September, in the aftermath of Spain’s elimination from the European Championship a month or so earlier, 15 players sent the country’s federation a boilerplate email withdrawing themselves from consideration for the national team.
Spain had, in an instant, lost the core of its golden generation. More important, however, the dispute pulled back the curtain on a simmering feud, one about the players’ treatment, the coach’s style, the federation’s support. For months it remained unclear what the fight would mean for Spain, one of the tournament favorites, but as the wins have piled up, the feud has faded to the background.
The official line, of course, is that it is all water under the bridge: The complaints and the frustrations that, only a little more than a year ago, led 15 of Spain’s players to refuse to represent their country are not relevant, not anymore.
Quite why that is depends, admittedly, on whom you ask. The federation and the coaching staff would like to believe that those frustrations have been resolved, that a more relaxed approach from Vilda and a more suitable financial commitment from the Spanish authorities — the squad now has a full complement of support staff, including both a nutritionist and a psychologist — have addressed the players’ concerns.
Whether the players see it that way is not clear. At various points during this tournament, there have been whispers that the truce inside the Spanish squad might best be described as uneasy, that there remain open wounds, scars that are reluctant to heal. Several players, it seems, are only on the most brusque speaking terms.
What is certain, though, is that whatever divisions still linger have not affected their performance.
Ella Braidwood
The goals are coming regularly now for England’s Alessia Russo: the opener in a rout of China, the winner against Colombia, the clincher against Australia.
“She just really has a feeling for scoring goals,” England’s coach, Sarina Wiegman, had said of Russo before the World Cup. It took her a couple games to hit her stride, but Russo is exactly the player England has come to expect now.
The statistics speak for themselves. Russo has scored 14 goals in 28 England appearances, among them an 11-minute hat trick — the fastest ever scored by an England women’s player.
Such is her status that, earlier this year, she was the subject of two world-record transfer bids. Her club at the time, Manchester United, rejected both, but she has since joined Arsenal, the suitor that made both offers, on a free transfer after her United contract expired.
“It’s what we’ve wanted for the women’s game, for years and years,” she said. She wants the clamor to continue: “I hope to still see it climbing the way it is now. The stages it deserves. The crowds it deserves, which we’re all getting now.”