The similarities were disconcertingly neat. Lauren James and David Beckham, both in their early 20s, scoring goals for club and country, received a red card for a petulant, off-the-ball incident midway through a tense World Cup second round match. The only difference has been the public and media reaction. While Beckham was vilified for months, James has swiftly been forgiven.
Partly, this can be attributed to a non-trivial element of knockout football: whereas in 1998 England lost to Argentina and were sent home, on Monday the Lionesses somehow beat Nigeria thanks to a decisive penalty from Chloe Kelly that, but for the net, may have reached escape velocity.
