WE MOVED TO North-West Germany ahead of our world Cup quarter-final match against France. Growing interest in us back home had led to the match being scheduled to be shown live on BBC Two. Our previous three games had been on the BBC’s Red Button service with highlights being shown late at night on BBC Two. Press coverage had grown as well as we’d progressed in the competition, just like it had done in 2005, 2007 and 2009. We felt that we were where we wanted to be again – with the eyes of the nation on us.
Our last few matches against the French had been tight. But we still had this rotten record of not beating them in thirty-seven years. Although, personally, I never think that such statistics mean too much. They had been beaten by Germany, but they had had their goalkeeper Bérangère Sapowicz sent off in that match and so, down to ten players, it was hard to read too much into that result. They had playing for them ten squad members from the Olympique Lyonnais ladies team, the side that had won the Women’s Champions League in 2010/11 – beating Arsenal Ladies on the way. And their 4–0 win over Canada was one of the most impressive performances in the group stage.
But the two teams were quite evenly matched. They stood at seven in the world rankings and we were tenth. We had similar levels of experience – they had reached the quarterfinals at Euro 2009. And we both had two players with over a hundred international caps – Yanks and me for us, Sonia Bompastor and Sandrine Soubeyrand for them. The danger player in their team looked like Marie-Laure Delie, who had twenty-three goals from twenty-three appearances for them, including two goals in the tournament so far.
All our big guns came back into the starting line-up – Faye, Fara and Yanks. Otherwise it was the team that had beaten Japan that stood for the national anthem at the BayArena Stadium in Leverkusen.
It was a red-hot atmosphere. The stadiums used in Germany were first class, and the BayArena was another example of that. The size of ground, the layout, the pitch, everything was just phenomenal, really. It was a great place to play a World Cup quarter-final. The tournament had been so well supported by the German public, with most of the venues close to capacity, and again the BayArena was no exception on this occasion.
Not for the first time, there was a large amount of support for the opposition in Leverkusen. Maybe that was because France is only across the border from Germany. Or maybe the home supporters were out in force to cheer against us again. We certainly didn’t feel as though we were the most popular team in the tournament, for whatever reason. But this didn’t really have an effect on us, either as individuals or collectively, as a team. We have had that a lot over the years. We’re used to it now.
I was fit to play but my left ankle was still feeling sore. Given my age, the thought did flash through my mind, as I was out there on the pitch, that it might be my last match at a World Cup. If we lost, that was most likely going to be it for me. So I thought to myself: ‘We’d better win this.’ There was certainly no way I wasn’t going to play in this one. Faye was passed fit to play and she replaced young Sophie Bradley, who had done nothing wrong against Japan, at the back.
In the opening seconds the ball broke to me and I quickly powered in a goal-bound effort that was turned around the post by the French defender Laura Georges. It was a bright start for us. But slowly France began to pile on a lot of pressure. Karen made good saves from Gaëtane Thiney and Louisa Nécib in the first half, and Camille Abily and Delie also went close.
We definitely knew we were in a match at half-time. Hope told us to be patient and to take our chance when it came to us.
On fifty-eight minutes, we did. Unitt hit a long ball forward from our own half and I combined with Yanks and then played the ball in to Jill, who was twenty-five yards from goal. A pass to Ellen looked the likeliest option, but, without breaking stride, Jill drifted between Laure Lepailleur and Sabrina Viguier and dinked it beautifully over the head of Céline Deville, France’s third-choice goalkeeper, who was playing due to suspension and injury.
The goal came against the run of play. But the goal was ours. We had the lead. All we had to do now was keep it and we would be in the Women’s World Cup semi-finals.
The longer the game went on, the more pressure the French put on our goal. The pain in my ankle, too, was mounting as time passed. At one stage I remember looking up at the clock on the scoreboard – I think we were about seventy or seventy-five minutes into the game, and we had the lead – and I thought to myself: ‘Just get through this.’
We were keeping them at bay. We were playing so well defensively that I thought they wouldn’t score. Our backs were against the wall, admittedly, but I felt so confident in our back line and goalkeeper. But the clock seemed to be going very slowly and as a result our place in the semi-finals seemed so near yet so far away. The second half seemed to be lasting for ever.
With nine minutes left to play, Hope took our two fullbacks off – Alex and Unitt – and brought on Steph Houghton and Claire Rafferty. These substitutions would be scrutinized afterwards in the media. My understanding is that, where Alex was concerned, there was a miscommunication involving a number of players on and off the pitch.
Alex had been playing with an injury to her right ankle throughout the tournament. She made a strong challenge late on in the match and somebody asked her if she was all right. She motioned with her arms that she was. Somebody somewhere read this wrongly and thought that she wanted to come off.
It is impossible to explain adequately the heat of the moment at a time like this. Split-second decisions can change games and nobody is necessarily to blame. We were playing in the World Cup quarter-finals and holding on for our dear lives to get into the semis for the first time in our country’s history. When emotions are running high it’s almost inevitable that somebody will be in danger of doing something that is going to be misinterpreted or misunderstood somewhere along the line. With us, it was this.
Alex was called over to the bench to be subbed. As she came off, she asked why she was being subbed; she said she was fine. But by that time the substitution had been made and she had been replaced.
We now had two young players at full-back who were making their World Cup debuts in the closing minutes of a quarter-final with us holding on to a slender lead. Had we held on it would never have been spoken about afterwards. Sadly, we didn’t.
France kept pushing and the pressure kept mounting. Anita came on for Yanks to shore up the midfield and take the pressure off us a bit. The clock kept ticking, but it was still taking for ever.
My ankle was now feeling very sore. I was struggling to run. I hadn’t realized the pain would get as bad as it did. It was literally at the moment of the third substitution that I felt it had become too painful to continue. But of course at that stage I had to carry on. The die had been cast. We had made all our substitutions.
We held out until three minutes from time, when we failed to clear one of the many attacks that were being thrown at our defence and Delie set up Elise Bussaglia, who curled the ball into the net from eighteen yards. It was immediate heartbreak for us.
As the French ran around, screaming their heads off in delight, it struck me there and then that I would now have to play on for another half an hour.
But first of all we had to get to extra-time. With their tails up, the French kept on peppering our goal until eventually, at last, the referee blew her whistle to signal the end of normal time.
I hobbled over to the bench to listen to the team talk. We were now a tired side carrying injuries. I couldn’t walk properly. I had a lot of inflammation around my Achilles tendon. I couldn’t even put my foot down to walk. I was in a bad way. Our inexperience going into extra-time in crucial positions at the back would later become a big talking point, even though none of the substitutes did anything wrong or anything to warrant that. They played well.
Essentially, given the state that I was in, we were down to ten players. I just hoped and prayed that we could get just one chance down their end and take advantage of it.
But the longer that extra period went on, the more the momentum of the French grew. They had that extra bit of confidence that we didn’t have, probably from scoring right at the end of normal time, when they were on the verge of going out of the tournament. We were now hanging on. It was cruel. But that is how fortunes in football can flip so quickly.
Ellen had a chance for us in extra-time, but France dominated that half-hour. It got to the stage where I felt that if they should score again, we were out. I couldn’t see us getting a goal. So, without thinking about it, I started to will the game to end. I wanted penalties.
I also knew that the more I ran, the more damage I was doing to my ankle. In hindsight, I should have come off the pitch as soon as it tightened up. From that point on I couldn’t actually physically push off it.
I didn’t realize it at the time – I was so pumped up with the match and trying to get us into the semi-finals – but my World Cup was over. There was no way I was going to be able to play again for quite a while. But that thought never entered my head during the match. All I could think about was getting us through to the next game. It wasn’t about whether I would be fit enough to play in it. It was all about getting us through, regardless of me.
Somehow I struggled through the 120 minutes. I had been in considerable pain for an hour. England managed to hold out for a 1–1 draw. That is really how it felt at the time. So now we had to face the dreaded penalty shoot-out.
I had been hoping for penalties. I thought it was the best chance we had of going through. I can’t speak for my teammates but I just felt that the French players had so much more belief in themselves and that the longer the game went on, the more likely it was that there’d be only one winner. So I felt relief when we got to penalties, to be honest. Penalties are a lottery, we all know that, but it was a chance I was very happy to take on that occasion.
Despite the ankle, I was more than happy to take a penalty. I felt that it was my responsibility as a senior player. I had never taken a penalty in a shoot-out for England before – we had only been in two shoot-outs in our history, and we had lost them both – but I felt confident about it. Even carrying an injury I felt that I would score.
When I got over to the touchline, having hobbled all the way, the first thing I did was sit down so that I could rest my ankle. As has been well documented, we didn’t have too many volunteers to take penalties after that match. Hope was stood there with a group of players around her and nobody was putting their hand up to take one. But, then, it’s not a nice part of the game.
To make matters worse, there’s not a lot of time between the final whistle and the first penalty. Hope needed to name her five penalty takers, but she didn’t have five penalty takers.
She’d gathered the players around her and asked, ‘Who wants to take a penalty?’ There was complete silence. I think everybody was waiting for somebody else to speak. Nobody stepped up at all. Then young Claire popped up. ‘I’ll take one,’ she said. She deserves so much credit for that.
Hope didn’t stop to think about it. Claire was in. ‘OK, what about somebody else?’ was the next question to the team. I put my hand up. I was the team’s penalty taker, along with Fara, and a senior player.
As I said, I was more than happy to take one. It was just that, with my injured ankle, I didn’t want to let the team down. But I felt confident in myself that I wouldn’t, and in the end I had no choice. I had to step up if nobody else was going to offer. Hope looked at me and said, ‘You’ll have the first one.’
But after I volunteered, it went silent again. Kaz eventually put her hand up next. Then, if I remember rightly, it was Casey, and then Faye.
France won the toss and decided to take the first kick. Abily tried to place it to Karen’s right but our goalkeeper was equal to it and made a comfortable save. She smashed the ball down hard on the ground in celebration. It was the perfect start for us.
I was up next. It felt like a long way from the centre circle to the penalty spot. My Achilles tendon was red raw now. I was in a lot of pain. I usually place my penalties, but this time, due to where I was at with my ankle, I was angry and I decided to go for power. I just wanted to blast it and get it over and done with. I remember saying to myself, ‘Put the ball down in a good spot. Focus on the frame of the goal. Keep your head over the ball. And don’t put it over the bar.’ I kept repeating that over and over again in my head.
I leathered it, and the ball flew into the top right-hand corner of the net. My reaction was pure emotion. I was just so pleased it had gone in. I gestured to the England fans in front of me in the stadium. It was a big release. I have been told that it reminded some people of Stuart Pearce’s penalty at Wembley against Spain in Euro 96. I can understand why people make that comparison. The reaction was quite similar, I guess.
More importantly, my goal put us in a great position. Kaz and Casey put their kicks away too, and with France scoring both their penalties, it was 3–2 to us after three kicks each. France scored again, through Bompastor, to level at 3–3, but we still held the advantage.
Claire stepped up next and, sadly, placed her kick wide of the post. Eugénie Le Sommer, another substitute, then put France into the lead for the first time, and suddenly we needed to score with our last kick to force a sudden-death shoot-out. It was agonizing to watch this unfold from the centre circle.
It fell to Faye to take the fifth penalty for us. She had bravely battled through cramp in the latter stages of the match and volunteered to take a penalty because she thought she should do so, that it was her duty as team captain.
Faye stepped up to take her kick and struck the bar. She was devastated. We were all devastated. It was heartbreak again – but much, much worse this time. We were out of the 2011 Women’s World Cup. We were unbeaten in the tournament but we were going home.
There were a lot of tears. Faye took it very badly, bless her. She felt that she had missed the penalty that knocked us out. That is all she could see at the time. We didn’t see it that way at all. Faye had shown the courage to get up there and take a penalty. People should take their hats off to her for that. It isn’t an easy thing to do, particularly when so much is riding on the result.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that we practised penalties after virtually every training session in Germany. I would also like to say this: you can practise penalties all day long and it makes no difference to what will happen on the day when it matters.
You can’t prepare for the stadium, the crowd, the pressure. How can you plan for who is going to be on the pitch after ninety minutes, or who is going to be fit or injured? It’s impossible. How can you re-create in training the pressure you feel when you walk up to the penalty spot at the end of a tense World Cup encounter? It’s all about how the individual deals with everything on the day. You don’t do that after a training session, when players are larking about and having a laugh with each other.
As the men’s team have fallen at this hurdle so many times as well, a cry went out that something had to be done about it. But what can be done about it? Some people in the press said that we should have known our five penalty takers before the match. How can you do that if one, two or three of your five penalty takers are no longer playing?
The debate raged on. Should Hope have said to us ‘One, two, three, four, five’ or ‘You, you, you, you and you’? But she couldn’t have done that in the situation we were in.
I do know that in 1999, my coach at Boston Breakers, Tony DiCicco, who was then the coach of the USA team, picked his players for the penalty shoot-out in the World Cup final against China. He told them who was going to take each one. I know that Mia Hamm didn’t want to take one. Tony was a big believer in putting your best five up there at all times. But Hope’s beliefs are different to that. In Leverkusen, she asked us all – as individuals within a group – if we wanted to take a penalty or if we felt confident enough to take one. It’s all down to the coach and how they manage their players. Tony was proved right, of course, in what he did then, but was that down to skill or was that down to luck? I still think penalties are a lottery.
A lot was made in the English press afterwards about penalty shoot-outs and the fact that England always seemed to exit World Cups and European Championships after losing them. The argument was that this was now as true of the women as it was of the men. Of course England’s men’s team have had a torrid time of it in the past, going out of the 1990 World Cup, the 1996 European Championship, the 1998 World Cup, the 2004 European Championship and the 2006 World Cup on penalties. That is quite a list. By contrast, England’s women’s team have gone out of tournaments at that stage against Sweden in the European Championship final in 1984, when the team was still not officially recognized by the Football Association, and against China in a competition that didn’t really matter to us, the Algarve Cup in 2005. The defeat by France in the 2011 Women’s World Cup was only the third occasion. It’s hardly an epidemic. But I suppose people can draw parallels if they want to do so.
I was so upset when I was able to sit down and consider everything that had happened in our defeat by France. We had missed out on such a great opportunity. The tournament was there for the taking, really. Overall, I think we had the right players at the right age with the right experience playing in the right team. It was a good blend. It felt right to me.
To make matters worse, I had to suffer alone immediately afterwards. Or should I say that I had to suffer with French players to keep me company. I was selected to be drug-tested, so I was sat in this cold room with – of all people – the French goalkeeper. Laure Boulleau and Elise Bussaglia were there too.
All of this meant that I didn’t meet up with my team-mates after the match. They all went back to the hotel, and some of them went straight to their rooms and packed up their stuff. When I got back, it was late. My dad had left our hotel by that time because he needed to get back to his hotel before they locked the doors! So I actually didn’t speak to anybody until the next day.
A few of the players were down in the bar. Faye was there, bawling her eyes out, bless her. I had come back to the hotel straight from drug testing and I felt sick. I was sick. I threw up when I got back to my room, probably due to the pure emotion of the evening. Not seeing my dad after the match didn’t help either. So I couldn’t go back down to join my team-mates, even if I had wanted to, in the circumstances. As it was, I didn’t want to see anybody anyway. It was a weird experience to go through.
I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning I found that only half the squad was left in the hotel. There was an early flight back to the north of England for some of them that morning. The squad departed at different times.
Those of us who were left had red eyes. We were all very upset about going out of the tournament. We felt even worse when we heard about the result from the other quarter-final played the night before, in Wolfsburg: Japan had beaten Germany 1–0. Karina Maruyama scored the goal twelve minutes from the end of extra-time. So the winners of Group A and Group B were out and the runners-up of Group A and Group B were in the semi-finals. How does that work? The tournament was wide open. We felt quite deflated and flat when we heard about that.
Japan went on and won the 2011 Women’s World Cup, which was terrific for them. They beat the USA in the final on penalties after twice coming from behind to force a 2–2 draw after extra-time. I felt really happy for Japan because the country had recently suffered a lot of disasters and tragedies due to a tsunami and an earthquake. It had been a terrible time there.
It was a fitting climax to a great tournament. The Japanese captain Homare Sawa won the Golden Ball and the Golden Shoe too with five goals. She was later crowned FIFA World Player of the Year, denying Marta the top prize for the first time in six years.
Women’s football had reached another new high: the total attendance figure for the 2011 Women’s World Cup was recorded at a staggering 845,751 spectators – an average of 26,430 per match. Many millions more had watched live coverage across the globe on television.
But it was still frustrating for us to consider that we were the only team to beat Japan in the World Cup, just as we had been the only team not to have been beaten by the champions Germany in the previous World Cup. We had also been good enough to beat the USA a month or two before the tournament began, and although this was a friendly match, they had played a full-strength side against us and come for the win. The match was shown live in the States and it certainly mattered to them.
All this was genuine proof of the progress we had made year on year, and continue to make. It makes for positive reading. We have just got to go out there next time and beat these teams – the best in the world – when it matters. We have got to do it in the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the finals of major international tournaments.
Nobody was better than us in Germany in the summer of 2011 – that is why nobody beat us. Yet we went out of the competition at the quarter-final stage. We didn’t take our chance, and we have to live with that.