Hello friends, and welcome to the review of the final of the Women’s World Cup 2023. We’ve been through a lot in the last 31 days. Goals, upsets, penalties, red cards and relentless, relentless brilliance from players from every continent. I can confidently say that this is the best tournament I have ever had the joy of following despite the morning time slots for games, despite the disrespect of the men’s domestic season starting over the peak of this tournament, despite the ongoing and very real issues of sexism and worse that continue to plague the beautiful game. But for now, for one final time, let’s recap the on pitch action. 

Spain 1 – 0 England

Finals are rarely brilliant games. Two outstanding teams bursting with the most tension they will ever feel in their lives tend to cancel out and games are won in margins and moments. There are exceptions to this trend but this match was not one of them. 

It can be split into two phases: BG and AG. Before goal and after goal. The BG era was characterised by several interesting features. The first of these were England creating regular chances despite Spain having most of the ball. 

Their best occurred around fifteen minutes in. The Lionesses surged forward. Their first attack broke around the Spanish defence but the second nearly broke through. Lucy Bronze hit a delightful side-foot cross (think 5 iron) that drifted over the entire box to her left-wing counterpart, Rachel Daly. Daly brought it down with her chest and laid it straight to Lauren Hemp who had found one of those perfect little pockets of space that really good attackers sit in unnoticed ‘til it’s too late. She hit it very sweetly and keeper Catalina Coll was beaten but the crossbar was not. 

The second feature of the BG era was the trend that led to the end of that period. Spain were repeatedly forcing open the space in between the English centre-backs and right wing-back – which, for those of you who are not experts in the art of soccer, is Not Ideal. The first goal should have come only seconds after Hemp rattled the crossbar. Teresa Abelleira drove through a strangely empty England midfield and threaded a through-ball between Bronze and Jess Carter to the onrushing fullback, captain Olga Carmona. England were backpedalling furiously but couldn’t stop Carmona’s cross which flashed just passed the outstretched boot of Salma Paralluelo (I think, I genuinely cannot tell whether she got a faint touch on it or not and the replays are very uncooperative) and arrived perfectly for Alba Redondo. No defenders, feet from goal, Mary Earps stranded in the other half having positioned to try to save from Paralluelo. One of the easiest tap-ins you will see in elite football. And Redondo got way too far around it to hit the ball straight into Earps. Credit to Earps who was making herself large and pushed the ball to safety – but this was a bad, bad miss and if Spain had gone on to lose, Redondo wouldn’t have slept for a month.

The BG era closed with a passage that really defined the entire match. It started with England in possession deep in their own half. Bronze carried the ball forward. And forward. Forward some more. She drifted in from the wing to the centre circle until she had four Spaniards closing her down. Normally, this would open up a huge opportunity for the attacking side and the space seemed, particularly watching on TV, cavernous. The left half-space, the left-wing were empty of red shirts, just waiting to be occupied, and in the 3-5-2 that England were playing, should have been filled by one of Georgia Stanway or Keira Walsh plus Rachel Daly out wide. And indeed, Ella Toone was making a run, Daly was out on the wing. But Toone left it way too late, Bronze furiously gesturing at the run she wanted; and Daly was flat-footed, not pushing up to support at all. So Bronze lost the ball. This kind of attacking breakdown is rarely the fault of the ball carrier – she was never given the right option by her teammates who were curiously reluctant to make an aggressive move in support.

Fault aside though, England were suddenly in real strife. Spain had already targeted the gap between Bronze and Carter, and with Bronze stuck in the centre of the pitch, that gap was looking pretty big indeed. Abelleira again provided the drive, undoing Bronze’s good work and hitting a raking pass out to that very exposed English right-flank and Mariona Caldentey. And this is where the failure in the system really became apparent. Carter had to step out to cover Caldentey but her two other centre-back colleagues couldn’t support her as they had Paralluelo and Redondo to cover. Bronze should have been supporting but she was miles away. And bombing down the wing in support of Caldentey, came Carmona, freed of her defensive responsibilities when Bronze moved central. Alessia Russo was chasing desperately, realising the danger, but when your striker is trying to track a full-back, it’s already feeling pretty catastrophic. 

Two-on-one, Carter did the only sensible thing she could, trying to stand up Caldentey and force a mistake rather than abandon her to track a runner without the ball. Caldentey was able to wait for Carmona to gust past her shoulder and put her into open grass, Carter completely left behind. Carmona didn’t need a second invitation. Without taking a touch, she hit the shot of her life. It flew across goal, past Earp’s dive and nestled perfectly inside the far post. England had been completely undone by a piece of pure positional play.

To emphasise the point – this was not Bronze’s fault. If you must blame an individual or two, you should look closest at Toone and Daly for not giving Bronze the opportunity for the pass. But really, they were clearly holding a set of positions that were demanded by the system, and it took a piece of lovely play from Abeillera to expose that weakness which most teams would not have been able to execute on. 

And so, the dawning of the AG era. This era was an evolution from the BG era, rather than a complete revolution. Its main characteristic was the complete lack of England ever really looking like they would score a goal. Spain had multiple clear-cut chances to extend their advantage instead. The first half ended with Ona Batlle weaving into the English box and picking a pass through a crowd of blue shirts to Paralluelo whose spinning shot hit the outside of the post and rolled wide. The second half started with Caldentey dancing past tackles and forcing a diving save from Earps to tip round the post. 

England’s manager Sarina Wiegman did try to change the pattern and her subs, Chloe Kelly and Lauren James, nearly bailed their teammates out. Kelly was a livewire on the right and her inviting cross should have had Toone on the end of it, but perhaps worried about an offside flag, Toone never made the run. Lauren Hemp did though and nearly tapped it in at the far post, Batlle doing enough to put her off – and Kelly was almost certainly offside by a foot too. 

Then, the moment that should have killed the game. A bit of chaos around the box and Caldentey attempted to force her way past Keira Walsh and succeeded but her shot was cleared wide when it eventually came. But wait, there’s VAR. The ball brushed the hand of Walsh in the process. Walsh had her arms down, but not quite at her side; Caledentey was not slowed down by it at all, it didn’t alter the outcome of the play. But none of that apparently matters these days. Penalty. Jennifer Hermoso on the spot, 69 minutes played, to seal it for Spain. She hadn’t counted on Earps though. It wasn’t a great penalty, low and towards the right hand corner, but not in the corner – and as the BBC graphic had flashed up before the shot, where she typically aims her penalties. Earps was already moving when the penalty was hit and smothered it with aplomb and a roar with a few choice expletives added in. 

This should have sparked England’s comeback and for a moment, it did. James had been mostly quiet but when she did get a flash of action, she showed what might have been had she stayed in this team and match sharp the whole tournament. Alex Greenwood fired a pass down the line to Hemp, who paused, spotted James’s run and picked her out. James slowed slightly to let the ball roll into her stride and, in the spot that has become known to many modern-ish football fans as the ‘Agüero’ zone, nearly produced an Agüero moment. Knowing Coll was expecting her to try to replicate Carmona’s goal and fire low and across the face, James instead hit a rocket towards the near top corner – but Coll was equal, leaping from her crouch to get fingertips to the ball and push it over. This was an outstanding save from a keeper who was only given the starting role from the round of 16 onwards. 

But from there, the game petered out rather than building to a crescendo. Spain kept the ball, kept control. England struggled to string passes together, consistently failing to find the spaces and gaps that they’d found all through the tournament to this point. 13 minutes of extra time leaked away like sand between the Lionesses grasping fingers – even a last minute corner with Earps coming up failed to create any opportunity. 

So Spain claim their first ever crown in yet another blow to the narrative. England had beaten teams from every continent to get here; Spain had mostly beaten other Europeans. England were unbeaten in competitive games under Wiegman, Spain were a powderkeg of disunity, held together almost to spite the manager, rather than because of him. But Spain are the team that dominated this game and it is a fully deserved trophy. Indeed, with triumphs in the junior age category World Cups as well over the last 3-4 years, their future talent pool looks terrifyingly full, as long as they can actually harness it effectively. Salma Paralleulo had a breakout tournament as the first of these exciting young players to make it in the big times, she is unlikely to be the last. 

For England disappointment. But not too much when the dust settles. They broke their semi-final hoodoo, continued a long trend of excellent performances in big tournaments and did it all without several key players lost to injury – no Beth Mead, no Fran Kirby, no Leah Williamson. They’ll also be back at the Olympics next year (masquerading as Great Britain) and to defend their Euro crown in 2025. Look forward to it – the future of the English team is more than Bright. 

Highlights of the tournament

Game of the tournament has to be South Africa’s 3 – 2 win over Italy. It had everything – underdog triumph, two comebacks, a penalty, a shocking own goal, a pair of amazing saves from two very good goalkeepers and a late, late captain’s goal to win it. Will not quickly be forgotten.

Goal of the tournament is much harder. Sam Kerr’s strike against England in the semi-final will be the popular choice (for me anyway) for the moment, the stage, the quality of the run and shot and the player herself. Linda Caicedo’s amazing solo effort was as much about the liquid feet as the stunning finish, and set dark horses Colombia alight as they soared towards a quarter-final appearance. Marta Cox: wow – what a way to open Panama’s World Cup goals account. But my personal award has to go to the very first goal in this World Cup: Hannah Wilkinson for the Football Ferns. New Zealand were underdogs against a star-studded Norway team but they didn’t play like it – this goal was vertical, rapid and precise, involved 5 different team members taking the ball the entire length of the pitch in 11 seconds, and announced very clearly that this would be the month of the upset. 

Moment of the tournament is always a tough one to pick without just rehashing goals but a few that stood out: the stamp that launched a thousand memes; the longest ever World Cup penalty shoot-out that ended in utter bafflement and the exit of the mighty USA; the longest ever World Cup penalty shoot-out, breaking the record set by that previous example, that ended in delirium for the host nation; Jamaica holding out Brazil and qualifying from the group despite scoring only one goal in three games leading to the final appearance of the phenomenal Marta. But I want to award this not just for something that was amazing, but something that truly represented the joy this tournament created, and for that, there is only one option: Morocco’s first ever WWC appearance ended in a 6 – 0 thrashing by Germany. Two games later, the entire team and coaching staff huddled around a phone on the pitch, waiting to hear from the Germany v South Korea game to find out whether their 1 – 0 win over Colombia was enough to send them through at the expense of the mighty Germans. This is World Cup football. 

Conclusion

And that’s your lot. I hope you had at least half as much fun as I did, because this has been phenomenal. Compared to the capitalist and often misogynist infested, soft-power plagued morass that is men’s football currently (ok maybe it always has been but it feels particularly acute recently), the women’s game is going from strength to strength. Diverse and family friendly crowds, outstanding talent from the pitch to the touchline and up into the commentary box. 

There is so much left to do in so many places. Teams that need to be paid. Coaches who should be sacked. Associations who should be collectively fired into the sun. Media organisations who didn’t take this seriously enough until too late. There will continue to be reckonings and failures until we, as a global community, get ourselves fully sorted out. There’s an old quote that football is the most important of the unimportant things – and I think that’s often true. But I also think women’s football, by how it creates so much positive and harshly illuminates so much injustice, may be worth counting as an important thing. 

Remember: the Paris Olympics next year. The 2025 Women’s Euros in Switzerland. And, in 4 years time, the WWC 2027 (TBD). We go again.

See you there. 

The It’s-coming-home-ometer: 1 inconsolably sobbing English right-back out of 10