England midfielder Georgia Stanway vowed the Lionesses would carry on fighting for top spot on the planet after finishing runners-up to Spain in the World Cup final in Sydney.
The Lionesses were among the pre-tournament favourites in Australia and New Zealand, with punters pointing to their dominant run to last summer’s European title, but injuries to Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and Fran Kirby and the retirement of Ellen White left Sarina Wiegman without four players who started every match of that triumph before she even named her World Cup squad.
Wiegman barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief after learning key midfielder Keira Walsh’s knee injury, sustained in England’s second group-stage encounter, was not as serious as initially suspected before the influential Lauren James was sent off in the last 16 and issued a two-match ban.
Stanway said after the 1-0 loss to Spain: “I think we can be proud. The last nine weeks, seven games, to wear a silver, it’s special.
“It’s hard to watch another team celebrate when it’s your goal and your dream. When the dust settled, we’ll be really proud of this.
“We hope everyone is really proud of us back at home. We hope we’ve inspired many many people. We’re the Lionesses, so we won’t stop what we’re doing, we’ll continue to break barriers, we’ll continue to push on.”
Stanway was one of seven players named to Wiegman’s 23-woman squad who had also featured four years ago in France, where the Lionesses finished fourth.
We’re the Lionesses, so we won’t stop what we’re doing, we’ll continue to break barriers, we’ll continue to push on.— Georgia Stanway
They guaranteed themselves an upgrade on their previous best finish, third at the 2015 tournament in Canada, when they knocked out co-hosts Australia with a 3-1 victory in the semi-final.
But on Sunday in front of a capacity 75,784 crowd at Stadium Australia they could not quite get the job done, coming agonisingly close to a momentum-shifting goal when Lauren Hemp pinged an effort off the crossbar early in the first half.
And after 29 minutes, Spain captain Olga Carmona struck the ultimately decisive strike past Mary Earps, who would go on to add a World Cup Golden Glove trophy to her 2022 FIFA Best award and save Jennifer Hermoso’s second-half penalty to give England a chance of staging a comeback that never came.
Stanway, who successfully converted a penalty to secure England a 1-0 victory against Haiti in their tournament opener, admitted she was “a little too upset to listen” to Wiegman’s post-match chat, adding, “in those moments, it’s regrouping, realising how far we’ve come in this group. We’ve faced a lot in this tournament, before the tournament, people probably didn’t have us written to be in this situation, so to reach a World Cup final is achievement alone.”
Defender Lucy Bronze, alongside Alex Greenwood, was one of just two Lionesses to have lived through the heartbreaks of 2015 and 2019 and after the loss admitted she was “just deflated”.
The defender, who plays with nine of the Spain squad at Barcelona, added: “Obviously we went into the World Cup wanting to win it and we were so close, but in the end we couldn’t quite get it over the line.
“I think we showed that, against adversity, we showed up. We were determined and resilient throughout the tournament – even before the tournament with missing a lot of players through injury and having a couple of different things happen throughout the tournament. We showed resilience to carry on and keep going and fighting.
“I think I am proud of what the girls have achieved, what we have achieved, but I think everybody that knows me knows that I only like gold medals.”
Kirby, Williamson and Mead could all return to tournament football should a Team GB qualify for next summer’s Paris Olympics through UEFA’s new Nations League, which begins in September.
At 31, Bronze is one of the older members of Wiegman’s squad, but when asked if she would need to take some time to think about going for another trophy immediately, retorted: “I am not retiring from England if that is what you mean.
“Olympics is always the goal, even if we would have won this tournament. The Nations League was the goal, the Olympics is the goal.
“That’s a different team to this England team. The goal is always to win tournaments with this team. We have shown that we can do that. We have made a final today as well. There is no reason why the team can’t go and create more legacies and more winning legacies.”
