Rachel Daly has defended England’s long and controversial buildup to the Women’s World Cup, describing the squad coming together more than a month before their opening match as “perfect”.
The Lionesses arrived at their St George’s Park base on Monday and had their first training session on Tuesday in preparation for a warm-up game against Portugal in Milton Keynes on 1 July. Players and staff fly to a training camp on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast on 5 July in advance of facing Haiti in Brisbane on 22 July. That means they will have been together for a somewhat remarkable 33 days before kicking their first competitive ball in anger in Australia – something that has caused outrage among Women’s Super League clubs, who feel their England players were bullied into accepting the 19 June meet-up date by the Football Association.
