Hola Amigas, and welcome to the Women\u2019s World Cup 2023 semi final preview! Finally, in this non-stop cavalcade of games, we get a short breather. Two full days between the end of the quarters and the start of the semis. Hands on knees, suck that air in. Let the adrenaline ease out of your veins so it can be replaced almost instantly by building nerves, by daydreams and nightmares of what is to come. We\u2019re down to the final four, but who are they, and how did we get here? Read on to find out\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This match was defined as much by the one player not on the pitch as those who were. The Netherlands midfield general, Danielle van de Donk, was suspended for this match through two yellow cards in previous games, and it\u2019s impossible to believe that she would have let Spain run this game the way they did. The most frustrating part for the Dutch is that nothing about this is surprising. This is how Spain play, with mesmeric pass-and-move football, possession numbers hitting 80% and higher, forcing opposition to run themselves into the ground just to stay level, giving up no chances by never giving up the ball. The issue isn\u2019t knowing what\u2019s coming, it\u2019s stopping it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And nothing seemed to be stopping this Spanish team. Not the disharmony caused by the outrageous continued presence of Jorge Vilda, kept in his post over the protests of 15 of the best Spanish international players last year with the backing of his boss, sporting director of the Spanish women’s national-team system: Jorge Vilda (yes, really). Not the continued absence of 12 of those 15 players from the squad. Not a surprise loss to Japan in the final, meaningless group game of this tournament. And certainly not this Netherlands team, still rebuilding after their previous peak under Sarina Wiegman. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain could have opened the scoring twice in the first six minutes, but their two best moments in the first half both came from Alba Redondo. First, her running header forced indomitable keeper Daphne van Domselaar into a ridiculous one-handed save that pushed the ball onto the post. Then, Redondo got on the end of a low, fast cross, tapping the ball into the path of Esther Gonz\u00e1lez who could not miss. The only thing standing between Spain and a thoroughly deserved 1 – 0 lead was VAR, which spotted that Gonz\u00e1lez had gone early and was offside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Netherlands appeared to have only one plan and it wasn\u2019t yet working – hit it long to Lineth Beerensteyn. She was working gamefully but it\u2019s not a plan that has a high success probability. Her best moment in normal time came from a brilliant run – she cut across the front of Laia Codina, sending her sprawling to avoid fouling the Dutch forward, then got herself just ahead of Irene Paredes as the Barcelona centre-back attempted to push her off the ball, sending Beerensteyn sprawling and leaving the referee pointing to the spot for a penalty. But VAR intervened again, suggesting that a clear and obvious error had been made awarding the penalty. Frankly, this was a joke. Beerensteyn was clearly in front of Paredes, was clearly going to reach the ball before the keeper and clearly bundled over. VAR is not supposed to overrule line calls, it\u2019s supposed to correct clear errors. This was never a clear error and Beerensteyn was robbed of a chance to put the Netherlands ahead against the run of play. A clear miscarriage of justice, but not an unjust outcome on the balance of the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thing about this Spanish way of playing is that it puts you under a huge amount of pressure as a defending team. Even someone as experienced as Dutch veteran of the last decade, Stefanie van der Gragt, can find themselves doing inexplicable things as the fatigue of the Spanish spin cycle settles deep in their bones. Teenage sensation (how many times have we heard that this tournament, the kids are ok) Salma Paralluelo, subbed on for Aitana Bonmat\u00ed, jetted down the wing and tried to cross into the box only for van der Gragt, in a moment of pressure induced madness, to stick a hand out and push the ball out of play. No one seemed to notice, probably because she was running down the outside of her own box. But as it made contact with the ball, her hand was just marginally over the white line which elevated it into VAR\u2019s jurisdiction. Penalty. Van Domselaar has been perhaps the outstanding goalkeeper this tournament but even she couldn\u2019t stop Caldentey hammering the ball in off the post. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you were a veteran defender, Euro winner, World Cup quarter-finalist scorer, World Cup silver medallist, retiring after this tournament no matter what; would you shrink away from that mistake? Would you crumple under the pressure and let the rest of the game run away from you into the end of your footballing life? You might. I certainly would. Stefanie van der Gragt did not. She spent the next ten minutes as an extra striker, charging up the pitch to try to make amends for her error – and when the board went up for twelve <\/em>added minutes, she was standing on the last shoulder of the defence. Victoria Pelova collected the ball in midfield and attempted to thread a pass through to Katja Snoeijs but overhit it. Van der Gragt was already running, the big centre-back accelerating like a steam train, going up through the gears with the grace of a semi-trailer. By the time she hits top speed, the ball is in her stride, and she takes one touch that carries her to the edge of the area. Codina was slow off the mark but her top speed compared to van der Gragt is like comparing a speedboat to an oil tanker and van der Gragt won\u2019t get another touch. She won\u2019t need another touch. A striker shooting from here would try to finesse the ball precisely between the keeper and the post. A midfielder would probably check back, earn another few metres of space, and aim to curl into the far corner. Van der Gragt is neither of those things. She simply puts all her self-recrimination, all her frustration at the chasing Spain have been giving them, into her right foot and punts the ball into the far side netting. 1 – 1. The centre-back masquerading as a forward has earnt herself and her team another 30 minutes of extra-time under the cold winter sun. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Beerensteyn had two chances to put the Netherlands ahead as the Spanish defence pushed increasingly high to attempt to find the winner. Her first, clear through with the keeper to beat at a tight angle, went agonisingly wide of the post. Her second, a tricky bouncing ball only feet from goal, she put over. Seconds later, it was game over. With the Netherlands caught upfield, Spain went for the jugular. The keeper\u2019s long ball out found Jennifer Hermoso who controlled, turned and spotted Paralluelo again haring off into space. Hermoso slid the pass in to the teenager, who is still 40m from goal but full pelt. Two touches takes her to the edge of the box and she slows, angles herself at Aniek Nouwen, fixing her in place, fooling her and then darting past, into the box, into empty green space, only van Domselaar between her and glory, the giant Dutch keeper who has been almost unbeatable this tournament, and now she\u2019s been beaten, Paralluelo hitting the base of the post and going in, 2 – 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no second chance for the Dutch; even with 10 minutes to go, they don\u2019t get a quarter of a half of a chance. Spain have sent them packing and now stand perhaps 180 minutes from eternal glory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If there is one constant from World Cups, it\u2019s that the narrative will never quite twist the way you expect. France 2019; Brazil 2014; Brazil 1998; Netherlands 1974. Here, we had a clash between a Japan team who were a well drilled machine, running over every team in their path so far with ruthless control and efficiency; and Sweden who had stumbled slightly out of their group, scraped past the USA by the width of a bee sting and who were supposed to be past their best. The youngest average age team in the tournament against the oldest. The handing of the baton, the changing of the guard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Not quite. Sweden steamrolled this match for the first hour. They overpowered the Nadeshiko, outran them, out thought them, out fought them. Stina Blackstenius was a constant menace up front, using her pace, intelligence and experience to create chances like the early one she put wide of the post when the goal was almost open. They broke the deadlock from the most likely source – a set piece – earned by Blackstenius who drew a foul cleverly out of Saki Kumagai. Kosovare Asllani swung the ball in and Ayaka Yamashita\u2019s punch dropped it to Nathalie Bj\u00f6rn. Her shot (1) was blocked straight back to her so she passed it in instead to Magdalena Eriksson who instinctively poked it at goal (2) but two defenders were in the way. It bounced off one straight back to Eriksson so she shot (3) again straight into the same defender and got it straight back so chested it down and shot (4) once more, this time not getting a good connection at all. Which worked because instead of being blocked yet again, it brushed past Kumagai\u2019s hand and into the path of Amanda Ilestedt – the Swedish defender who is making an unlikely run at the golden boot award – who slammed it home at the 5th time of asking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, if it wasn\u2019t for Yamashita, Sweden would have been out of sight. Twice she flew full stretch to her left to deny Asllani and then Johanna Kaneryd; but from the corner resulting from the second, the mass of jumping players completely obscured the path of the ball for defender Fuka Nagano as she jumped and had no chance of getting her hand out of the way. VAR spotted it and a penalty resulted. Briefly – this is, by the laws and how they are interpreted these days, an uncontroversial decision. Morally, it shouldn\u2019t be. It is a joke that teams give up a penalty (roughly a 75% probability of scoring a goal) from an action that they have zero control over. Genuinely, you try jumping as high as you can without using your arms. And remember, attackers aren\u2019t penalised for this, only defenders – so it\u2019s a completely uneven playing field. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, editorial aside, Yamashita could do nothing about Filippa Angeldal\u2019s penalty and Sweden were 2 – 0 up and absolutely cruising. But this Japan side are full of character and decided that they weren\u2019t going to go down wondering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The counter-attack for the final 35 minutes or so was furious. Japan found their missing rhythm and battered the Swedish defence, forcing the Bl\u00e5gult into a series of desperate defensive manouevres. Aoba Fujino forced the Swedish keeper into her first save in anger, bursting out of the Swedish defensive line and shooting across the face of goal, tipped wide by a sprawling Zecira Musovic. Then, the moment. Riko Ueki carried the ball into the box and went down. Trip? Honestly, I cannot tell from the replays whether she was tripped or just tripped – if you take my meaning. But the referee was convinced and VAR decided it couldn\u2019t be bothered double checking so Ueki had the chance to pull one back. As is so often the case, the difference between a brilliant penalty and a horrible one is microscopic, Ueki slamming it off the underside of the bar and out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Worse for Japan was to come. Fujino lined up a free kick just outside the box and absolutely lathered it over the wall. Musovic dived high and right and missed, the ball hammered into the bar, into the back of Musovic\u2019s head, onto the inside of the post, down onto the goal line, dead centre of the goal line, and somehow rolled out. It looks like a glitch. The ball shouldn\u2019t come off Musovic\u2019s head in that direction, it should just bounce into the net. Once it comes off the post, it should roll inwards, not outwards. But whether divine intervention or just the forces of nature responding to Musovic\u2019s bloody minded determination to not concede, it was still 2 – 0. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 86 minutes gone and finally, Japan\u2019s persistence was rewarded and it was an all substitute affair. Jun Endo picked up the ball on the left wing, just outside the box. She cut a perpendicular ball towards the centre into Kiko Seike who controlled with her right, turning initially away from goal to get face-to-face with Hanna Bennison before fooling her with a change of balance to open up space for the shot. It was a bad shot but worked out well – Eriksson had to stretch to try to clear it and only succeeded in stopping it dead while falling over. One lone bouncing ball, in the open, dead in front of goal, is like a baby lamb, alone in an open field. Honoka Hayashi was already mid-stoop when Eriksson hit the turf and sank her talons into the opportunity, smashing the ball home past a furious Musovic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ten minutes of added time and right at the start of them, as Japan scrapped furiously to equalise, they had their shot. Ueki darted ahead of the pack at a corner and got a delightful clean connection goalwards, only to see Musovic at full dive, pushing it clear. There were no more opportunities. Japan had left their run too late, given Sweden too much of a start. They go home now but my gosh – look out for this team at the Olympics next year and for WWC2027 – they\u2019ll be battle-hardened and lethal by then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet another clash of styles. I still don\u2019t trust this Spain team. They are clearly packed to the brim with world class talent, they have a defined style and they have come through some serious tests since being battered by Japan. But if there\u2019s one team in this competition who can neutralise them, I reckon it\u2019s Sweden. This Swedish team have a truly stalwart defence, have no weaknesses at set pieces and have the energy and nous to keep any attack at bay. Given that I thought both these teams would be out in the quarter finals, I\u2019m going to throw my hands up and admit that I have no bloody idea what\u2019s going to happen; only that it\u2019ll be worth tuning in to find out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There will be entire books written about this match alone but honestly, the main event that left my nerves in tatters and my partner annoyed at being woken up by my 10am screaming was the penalty shootout at the end. There\u2019s just the minor matter of the 120 minutes that preceded it to cover first\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Long periods of this match were cagey. Both teams lined up in a classic 4-4-2 formation, and Australia in particular weren\u2019t great at getting out of that shape when they had the ball, meaning they spent long periods passing it back and forth along the back four with no options to progress it. France were more effective at splitting the centre-backs wide and pushing their full-backs up the pitch, but ultimately didn\u2019t really get that much more joy from it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So – the highlights worth mentioning. First, the second of a pair of French corners fell to Eug\u00e9nie Le Sommer, lurking at the back of the pack. Her shot was fairly poor and would have gone wide if it hadn\u2019t been directed straight at Ma\u00eblle Lakrar. 5 feet out, unmarked, goal absolutely at her mercy, Lakrar somehow put it so far over the bar that it almost didn\u2019t feel like a chance – if you miss that badly, surely you must have been in the wrong place or you were reaching desperately or the ball spun off the bounce – but no. She\u2019d just absolutely blown it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Secondly, after a nice patch of possession shortly before the end of the half, Ellie Carpenter found a gap in the French line to slide in Hayley Raso to the byline. Her pullback was slowed by Wendie Renard and appeared to be being covered by Sakina Karchaoui and keeper Pauline Peyraud-Magnin but their lines of communication were horribly crossed and they contrived to let Emily van Egmond steal in and pass the ball back to Mary Fowler. The goal was empty, keeper completely out of place, no French defender within 3 metres of her so Fowler simply hit the ball directly at the centre of the goal. The entirety of Suncorp Stadium was already rising from their seats when, out of clear grass, moving at speeds normally reserved for enraged cats or your common variety Formula 1 car, blew \u00c9lisa De Almeida, contorting herself to block the shot with her thigh. It was the most outrageous piece of defending you will see and ensured France got to half-time at 0-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fowler had two more chances, both saved by Peyraud-Magnin, and Sam Kerr\u2019s introduction created a wave of Matildas\u2019 energy which led to another save from Raso\u2019s rasping long-ranger. But neither side could create a winner in normal time, so the extra half-hour was invoked. France did get the ball in the net in extra-time and it would have been a sickener – Alanna Kennedy had been immense all evening in defense but when a French corner came in, her attempt to clear it only placed it perfectly in her own goal\u2019s corner – but the referee was already waving it away as Renard had been hauling on Kennedy and Foord by the collar, a straightforward foul. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Mackenzie Arnold had to fly to her right to keep out a late Vicki B\u00e8cho screamer and Kennedy scrambled the ball off her own line as France piled on the pressure at the very end, but no break to the deadlock emerged. The most notable events in the last 5 minutes were the introduction of senior Aussie pro Tameka Yallop, and a classic of the genre from French coach Herv\u00e9 Renard, swapping his goalkeepers to bring on penalty specialist Sol\u00e8ne Durand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And so, penalties. I had spent the last 120 minutes or so feeling increasingly ill, the last 30 minutes with my heart rate hovering around 150 bpm and the last 5 minutes consumed by utter dread. Not like this. Not France winning the toss to shoot first, not another World Cup heartbreak for my country, not going out on penalties like we did in Nice in 2019 and at the Rio Olympics in 2016. I can barely watch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Selma Bacha is first – and Arnold hurls herself to her right and saves! Yes! This is it! It\u2019s going to be our night after all. All good. Calmer. Still tense, but calmer. Caitlin Foord for Australia and Durand picks right in both senses but Foord has smashed it past her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 0 – 1 Australia. Superstar Kadidiatou Diani\u2019s turn and god of course she\u2019s going to score, she is locked in and sends Arnold the wrong way. 1 – 1 but we\u2019ve got a penalty in hand, we\u2019re still fine, it\u2019s all fine because it\u2019s our penalty specialist Steph Catley and oh hell Durand\u2019s plunged across and saved it and it\u2019s 1 – 1 and our advantage is gone and I have my knees pulled up to my chest in agony and fear. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 1 -1. Renard? Obviously going to score. Consummate professional, French icon, bottom corner, never in doubt. 2 – 1 France. Not ideal. But now it\u2019s our own, Sammy Kerr, and with the entire nation\u2019s eyes on her, she wins the mind game and buries it, Durand unable to pick the direction in enough time to get there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n 2 – 2. I\u2019m on my feet. Then on the sofa again. Then my feet again. Oh heck it\u2019s Le Sommer – Diani, Renard, Le Sommer – a more ice cold, guaranteed, bankable trio of penalty takers I have never seen and Le Sommer, like the two before her, sends Arnold the wrong way and pops it in with minimal fuss. 3 – 2 and it feels like Arnold is becoming increasingly predictable, increasingly unlikely to ever save a ball again and this is how we exit our own World Cup, the most horrible and stressful and heart stopping way possible and it\u2019s Fowler who missed all our best chances to win it normal time, who is all delicate touch and skill and timing and is way too young and cultured to score this crucial penalty and surely she won\u2019t score surely she\u2019ll wilt under the pressure of a home World Cup and oh my days she\u2019s just pulverised it into the corner with Durand a country mile away. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 – 3 and \u00c8ve P\u00e9risset, who was brought on at 120 minutes specifically to take a penalty, is here to give France back the lead but yes! It\u2019s Arnold! She\u2019s gone full length and tipped it onto the post by the narrowest of margins! We\u2019re going to do it! We\u2019re going through surely! One pen to win and Australia, having seen the USA send their keeper to take their 6th penalty, are going one better, Arnold herself is stepping up for the 5th and Durand is rooted to her spot and Arnold! has! hit\u2026 the post\u2026 Oh god. The air goes completely out of the stadium and I have slumped back to the couch, head in hands, legs jittering. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 3 – 3. Grace Geyoro now. We go on. She takes a long time, pausing, pausing again in her run up and has? Arnold?! saved it?!?! She has\u2026 not. She got fingertips to it but couldn\u2019t stop it and now we have to score or we\u2019re done and Katrina Gorry is next and I can barely breathe, Gorry goes left, Durand is going the right way, oh no oh no she\u2019s gonna save it, she\u2019s got two hands to it, she\u2019s pushed it\u2026 into the net?! Somehow she\u2019s not saved that and Australia are still alive but I am barely clinging on to coherence and indeed mortality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 4 – 4 and 12 actual penalties taken and this is already tied for the second longest ever penalty shootout in any World Cup, with 1982 West Germany v France and 1994 Sweden v Romania and 1999 Brazil v Norway, the only longer one having occurred one week ago when Sweden and the USA needed 14 penalties and one nanometre to be separated. Karchaoui now for France, and she shows no sense of pressure, hammering the ball in off the top of the cross bar and roaring in triumph. Yallop, the veteran. She\u2019s seen this before. She\u2019s been knocked out like this in 2019 and that must be on her mind and it’s certainly on my mind, the initial adrenaline from the start of the shootout curdling in my veins, being overwhelmed by the despondency of impending failure and Yallop gets completely in Durand\u2019s head and tucks it away! How! This is now guaranteed to be the longest ever World Cup shootout and my nerves can\u2019t take much more.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n 5 – 5. Lakrar. She missed a sitter early in the first half, two hours ago, two years ago it feels like. Coolest penalty yet, her straighter runup fooling Arnold and she places it in the empty net. 6 – 5 France. For the third time in a row, Australia have to score. We have to. We have to. We can\u2019t go out of our own World Cup in a marathon penalty shoot out, we have to score. Surely. It would be too cruel not to. Ellie Carpenter, Lyon player. She\u2019s been up against her club teammates all night. Actually I feel ok about this and it\u2019s not just because I\u2019m too mentally shattered to feel anything substantial anymore: she\u2019s elite, she\u2019s world-class, she knows all these players. She\u2019s oh hell has she missed it? No! In off the post! She finds the narrowest possible margin between Durand\u2019s dive and the woodwork and she nails it and she screams her defiance at the crowd, at the French players, at the gods themselves and I want to die rather than keep experiencing whatever the heck this is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 6 – 6. Was there actually a match before this? I feel like I\u2019ve been watching penalties since I woke up. My mind is gone. My heart is burning up like a redlining engine. I can\u2019t choose between sitting, standing, pacing, lying on the ground in despair. Kenza Dali. Breakout star in the last two games. She\u2019s been so good of course she\u2019ll score, she\u2019ll pop it away, she goes to Arnold\u2019s left but Arnold has guessed that and punches it away!! Yes! Match point Australia! Yes! Oh my days yes! Unless. No. Please don\u2019t. Arnold has gone too early, she\u2019s left her line before Dali kicks it and that means it\u2019s a retake. Still 6 – 6. Still Dali. She lines it up. She runs at the ball. Arnold jumps to go to her right, the opposite way and Dali goes left but it\u2019s a feint from Arnold! She\u2019s saved it again! Twice in a row she\u2019s saved from the same player and this one counts. This one counts for sure. 6 – 6 and the Matildas will win with this penalty. We\u2019ve been through the fire. We\u2019ve earned this. Clare Hunt to win it for Aus. She jogs up and bam! Durand has gone too far! She\u2019s dived the right way but Hunt has hit it fairly central and Durand has gone past it but out of nowhere – her left hand, rising, going against her direction of travel and she saves! Aaaaaarghhhhhhhhhh whyyyyyyyy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It is still 6 – 6. We have had 18 penalties and one retake and we\u2019ve entered a new era of geological time. B\u00e8cho now. She was brilliant off the bench, nearly turning the game France\u2019s way. She can give France back the initiative. I have ascended from nervousness, through anxiety, past panic and into some weird lacuna where my mind feels weirdly calm but my entire body feels like I am going into some sort of toxic shock. B\u00e8cho. Arnold. Arnold is completely fooled, B\u00e8cho sends her the wrong way but she\u2019s misplayed too! She hits the post! It\u2019s still <\/em>6 – 6 and somehow Australia have a third chance to win this shoot-out. They scored three in a row when they had to to stay in it, can they avoid missing three in a row when they could have won? Who is it? It\u2019s Cortnee Vine. Young, plays her football in Australia, never taken a penalty before. Never. What a time to start: in the quarter final of a World Cup in your own country at 6 – 6 as the tenth penalty taker in your team. I\u2019ve already accepted failure. I\u2019ve already consigned myself to an eternity on this sofa watching these two teams match each other blow for blow until the heat death of the universe. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Vine places the ball calmly. She takes a few steps back, stops, and stares at it. Tugs on her shirt. Brows creased. She looks like she\u2019s contemplating a stuck door, or a tricky exam problem, not a nation defining penalty kick. She starts her run up with a step to build pace. Then a second to accelerate. The third step lands her left foot next to the ball. Her hips pivot, opening her body angle towards her right. Her right foot is swinging through the arc, foot side on. It reaches the ball. Clean connection. Her foot ends its swing and comes down slightly awkwardly as her momentum carries her forward and right, and her body shape is falling to her left. She regains her balance. Pauses. Just a microsecond. Pushes off her right foot. Arms spreading. Left foot down. Right foot down and she\u2019s running, turning, running parallel to the goal line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Then the ball hits the back of the net. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Explosion. Suncorp Stadium has blown its roof off, they\u2019ll be finding pieces of it as far away as Byron Bay in days to come. The camera follows Vine who is now full sprint, fists clenched, leaping into an indistinguishable mass of gold and green Matildas. Arnold, in full black, is seconds behind her and piles in too. Then the subs. Then the coaches. Cortnee Vine has won the penalty shootout. Australia have won the penalty shootout. Australia have won a World Cup quarter final for the first time in my memory, in my lifetime, in all time. My head is gone, I am screaming at my television I am screaming into my phone I am jumping up and down at 10:30am on a Saturday morning because over 16,000km away, on the other side of our globe we call Earth, fourteen women representing the country of my birth have won a game of football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, 25 minutes later, the England v Colombia game kicked off. Not gonna lie, I didn\u2019t so much watch this as slump back catatonic and let it wash over me. My headline from this was simple: this was the classic \u2018underdog bombing out of a deep tournament run\u2019 game. Several injuries to key players? Check. Outplayed your more fancied opponent over the 90 minutes? Check. Make a couple of bad mistakes and get ruthlessly punished? Check and mate.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The first incident was only seven minutes in. Early English pressure led to a mad goalmouth scramble that ended in Carolina Arias hurling herself in the way of an Alessia Russo shot, getting clattered by her own keeper, Catalina P\u00e9rez, and copping a point blank Lauren Hemp shot right in the bonce. Her game was over, one of Colombia\u2019s top performers this tournament already out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But the first half didn\u2019t swing against them. Instead, Colombia went to war. Linda Caicedo fired the first volley: Jessica Carter is a brilliant one-on-one defender but 18-year-old Caicedo took her on – burning her for pace down the wing then cutting back so sharply she left Carter sprawled on the floor helpless – but her right foot shot went high. Then, as England attempted to work their way into some rhythm, Colombia took them into the trenches. Hemp kicked the ball forward and went to chase after it only to be flattened by Ana Mar\u00eda Guzm\u00e1n, on as a sub for C Arias. No foul apparently. Then it\u2019s Rachel Daly\u2019s turn and it\u2019s Guzm\u00e1n again, no ball contact, plenty of player contact, and again – no foul. I\u2019m obliged to say that this sort of thing is not football but honestly? I was having a blast. Alex Greenwood tried to turn the tables back, attempting to muscle striker Mayra Ramirez off the ball, but she may as well have tried to shift the Andes – Ramirez so thoroughly monstering the English defender that she quite literally fell face first into Ramirez\u2019s elbow as the striker accelerated away with the ball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wind was at Colombia\u2019s back (probably because it had seen what was happening to anyone in front of them) and they capitalised. Leicy Santos ran from out to in towards the English box, twisting Rachel Daly in and out and, realising that the keeper was unsighted, went for the audacious. Her shot looked like a cross for just long enough that Mary Earps in goal had no time to adjust when she realised the danger. She backpedalled desperately and leapt but the backspin Santos had imparted on the ball carried it tantalisingly over Earps\u2019s fingertips and into the net. Colombia led and deservedly so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately for them, it didn\u2019t last long. The board was showing seven minutes of added time at the end of the half when England kicked off again, and they spent all of it ratcheting up the pressure on the Colombian defence. With six of those minutes gone, Keira Walsh swung a cross towards the far side of Colombia\u2019s box, Lucy Bronze won the header in towards Russo but the ball came off the tangle she was in with a Colombian defender and rolled towards P\u00e9rez the keeper. Chance gone. Unless\u2026 P\u00e9rez slid in to collect and utterly fluffed it. She got two hands on the ball and somehow failed to gather and Russo, never having given up on it, managed to smuggle it under the keeper, into the path of Hemp, who poked into the empty net. Colombia had been the better team for the whole half, and with one mistake, England were level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The second half felt different. Colombia\u2019s high had been punctured and England slowly but surely took control of the game. The killer blow came just after the hour. Greenwood lofted a long pass into Georgia Stanway who brought it down in a single phenomenal touch and played a pinpoint pass forward with another. Russo, on the move, flicked the ball through Daniela Arias\u2019s legs, sprinted through and with the angle narrowing, fired a true striker\u2019s finish past P\u00e9rez and into the net. 2 – 1. P\u00e9rez then had to withdraw from injury as well and although Colombia pushed hard for an equaliser, the Lionesses were not going to give up their position of advantage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Colombia go home but they genuinely earnt their place in these quarter finals – with a fully professional domestic league, expect them to be back before long. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is massive. On the one hand, the Matildas are riding high – we\u2019ve just beaten two of the pre-tournament favourites for the Cup in Canada and France and have deserved it both times. The crowd is behind us. Kerr is back fit. We beat England in a friendly only a few months ago and we beat a Great Britain team that was basically England in the quarter-finals of the Olympics back in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other – neither of those teams was this England team. They are unbeaten in competitive games under Wiegman. Australia have only been to the semi-finals of a major competition once, where they lost to Sweden (who are obviously lurking menacingly in the other semi-final). England are in their third World Cup semi-final in a row, and while they lost the last two, they are also coming off their Euro winning run last year where they comprehensively banished Sweden in the semis. The Lionesses are a ruthless team, they hunt in packs, they are killers and they are winners. Above all, they still have the best manager in international football. I want, more than anything I have ever wanted perhaps, for Australia to win this. I fear that this might be the end of the dream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n No team who makes it to the semi-finals of the World Cup has failed. These teams have all succeeded, all deserve plaudits, all will be held up as one of their nation\u2019s greatest ever. But only one will get to lift the cup. And of these four teams, two stand out for their experience here before. Sweden and England are the two teams who have been at this stage of major tournaments, who know how to pace themselves through a tournament and who, most of all, know how to win pretty, win ugly, win big, win small. Australia and Spain are new here, likely to get altitude sickness, likely to succumb to that doubt that afflicts all pretenders to the throne. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thing is though. Nothing is certain. Nothing is written yet in stone. Anything extraordinary could be about to happen next. So. Clear your schedules for Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday. Find somewhere, anywhere, to crowd around a tv, a projector, a mobile phone. Bring your scarves and hats and jerseys and face paint but most of all, bring some willingness to get invested in the greatest, most universal experience you can truly have in this life – getting lost in the sauce of the final stages of the World Cup. Good luck. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The It\u2019s-coming-home-ometer: 8 hastily stitched up Mary Earps goalie jerseys out of 10<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hola Amigas, and welcome to the Women\u2019s World Cup 2023 semi final preview! Finally, in this non-stop cavalcade of games, we get a short breather. Two full days between the end of the quarters and the start of the semis. Hands on knees, suck that air in. Let the adrenaline ease out of your veins […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"WB4WB4WP_MODE":"","WB4WP_PAGE_SCRIPTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_STYLES":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FONTS":"","WB4WP_PAGE_HEADER":"","WB4WP_PAGE_FOOTER":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,22],"tags":[8,20,21],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football","category-wwc2023","tag-football","tag-womens-world-cup","tag-wwc2023"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions\/93"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportsthoughtsoughts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Japan 1 – 2 Sweden<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
This match<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Australia v England <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Australia 0 (7) – 0 (6) France<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
England 2 – 1 Colombia<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
This match<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n