Women’s World Cup: The humble backstories of England team to play World Cup Final

When Bobby Moore raised the trophy aloft in July ‘66, women were suffering from an FA ban on playing organised football. The ban lasted for half a century, from 1921 and 1971.

Women could not play in local stadiums, let alone structures as grand as Stadium Australia. Those that stubbornly defied the ban tell stories of having to share ponds with ducks as they washed off the mud. They did not have access to pitchside facilities.

Women could not dream about winning a World Cup: the women’s edition did not exist until 1991.

This generation has reached the final not only through burgeoning talent but through sheer determination and guts too. In an alternate universe, this England team would not be in Sydney, about to compete for the grandest honour. Millie Bright, the England captain, would not be snarling, charging into tackles and leading this side, but instead balancing part-time jobs grooming horses and working as a fitness instructor.

“She’d probably have said you were being silly. It was never going to happen. I guess dreams come true,” Bright said when asked what her nine-year-old self would have thought about the prospect of today’s game.

Lucy Bronze, the right back who could today become the most decorated England player of all time, would be serving pizza at Domino’s in Headingley. You would find the goalkeeper Mary Earps in a toy shop and Beth England serving fish and chips on Wellington Street in Barnsley.

That is not fiction; it was the reality, only a few years ago. Reaching a World Cup final was almost beyond a dream when there were more pressing matters to consider, like finding the money to pay for the rent each month.

Spain’s players have had similar struggles. Irene Paredes, one of three co-captains, remembers the difficulties: “The other day I was saying how important it is for us as players to play the game but [appreciate] everything outside of it too … the majority of players here, we have grown up thinking that football didn’t belong to [us].

“There were obstacles, times we’ve been trained by people not prepared to be trainers [coaches]. It is important for everyone to know it is possible, this space is ours, we can play a World Cup final, and we are the examples. That is history. Spain has always [had] a football-loving culture, we’ve grown up with football but it was not our space, or at least that’s what they made us feel.”

When they did play, few were there to watch. A man and his dog is no exaggeration. They dealt with sexist comments, people telling them that their place was in the kitchen, not on a football pitch.

Slowly, England recovered from those obstacles, thanks to countless figures, such as Hope Powell, the former manager, who went above and beyond to fight for the team to be given adequate resources. Still they fell short, in successive semi-finals (2015 and 2019).

Within that context, it is hardly surprising that in the first training sessions under Sarina Wiegman, who arrived as head coach in September 2021 – having won the Euros with Holland, whom she also led to a World Cup final – she had to tell the players to slow down, so eager were they to impress. Finally, the FA had found a coach who could extract the players’ potential, within an environment at St George’s Park, the national football centre, which was ready to accommodate them.

Both teams have broken down the doors that the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, bizarrely claimed on Friday were “open” – but which merely required women to push them.

On the stairs of England’s Terrigal base camp, which they departed on Friday, read phrases designed by the players: “Our family, our England, our unbreakable bond.”

They have been connected by their struggles, their shared stories displayed around a room at St George’s Park. It was there that, at the very start of this long journey, before the Euros, staff transformed a room to replicate a campfire set-up, with toasted marshmallows and hot chocolate available.

Those stories have helped a nation to connect with a team whose names they barely knew only 14 months ago. They are likeable in their innocence. Ella Toone, the attacking midfielder, was baffled when paparazzi captured her eating a pasty after the Euros.

Their success has been built chiefly on the leadership of the unflappable Wiegman. They have not forgotten the journeys that got them here; instead they have used them as a driving force. The Euros win became leverage to force the government to give girls equal access to football in schools. After the tournament they will seek to resolve a row with the FA over bonuses, their prowess on the pitch no doubt strengthening their bargaining position.

What will their world look like on Monday morning if they win the World Cup? How many people will they inspire, and just how good can the future generation be, without the weight of juggling their careers with football?

In the past, that pressure would have caused players to wilt. But the implications are not what they will be thinking about at 8pm in Sydney. They will be thinking about the game plan, the tactics, the motivational words from the walls of their training camp.

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Wiegman has stripped away the national fascination with that 1966 achievement, and instead focused on how to win.

Their success will be defined by many by the result of this astronomical football match but in many ways their biggest victory is to reach this stage at all.

-The Times 

Originally published as Women’s World Cup: The humble backstories of England team to play World Cup Final