England are just one win away from becoming world champions, after beating 2023 Women’s World Cup co-hosts Australia 3-1 on Wednesday.
It gives them the opportunity to do something remarkable – follow up their Euros success on home soil last year with the biggest prize of all, and cement their place at the very top of the football world.
Ella Toone scored in the 36th minute to put England up 1-0 as they dominated possession in the first half against Australia.
Australia put on pressure in the second half and Sam Kerr, returning to the starting line-up for the first time after injury, levelled with a stunning strike on 63 minutes. They pressed for the advantage, but a mistake at the back allowed Lauren Hemp to put England back ahead in the 71st, and a clinical finish from Alessia Russo on the break sealed the Lionesses’ place in the final four minutes from time.
Spain will be the Lionesses’ opponents in the final after they beat Sweden in dramatic fashion in Tuesday’s semi-final. Olga Carmona netted an 89th-minute winner to send the Spaniards to Sunday’s showpiece.
How can I watch the Women’s World Cup final?
The World Cup final will be played on Sunday 20 August with kick-off at 11am BST. It will be played at Stadium Australia in Sydney.
There will be coverage on both the BBC and ITV, with the programme beginning at 10am on BBC One and 10.15am on ITV1. You will also be able to stream the match via BBC iPlayer, the BBC Sport website, and ITVX.
The third-place play-off, between Sweden and Australia, will be a day earlier, on Saturday 19 August, kicking off at 9am BST.
That game will be played at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, and shown on ITV.
What should England expect from Spain?
Daniel Storey, chief football writer at i, has taken a look at Spain’s strengths and weaknesses ahead of the final.
Strengths
For all the upheaval – more on that later – Spain arrived in Australia in supreme form, losing one game since the Euros (to Australia) and beating USA, Norway, Japan and Denmark. Their blip against Japan was significant, but tournament football is about surviving and finishing second in their group hardly held Spain back.
In a low-scoring tournament defined by second-tier nations demonstrating their rapidly improving defensive organisation, Spain have been the emphatic exception. They have scored 17 goals in six matches and at least twice in every game bar the defeat to Japan.
There is also a fluidity to their attacking that makes them irrepressible when at top speed, epitomised by the manner in which they share out their goals. Three different Spaniards have scored three times in this World Cup, and at Euro 2022 their six goals were all scored by different players.
Finally, Spain now have the swagger of a tournament heavyweight, something that we haven’t seen before. The first XI have experience and star quality, while in reserve young super-talents like Salma Paralluelo can come on to change the game. Spain possess more exciting attacking depth than any other country.
Weaknesses
Given that Spain had Zambia and Costa Rica in their group, it is alarming that Spain have conceded seven goals in this tournament. USA won the last two tournaments while conceding fewer goals combined than Spain have even before the final. They also allowed both Netherlands and Sweden back into knockout ties by sitting back on a lead (albeit they won both games eventually). The message is that Spain are dangerous when playing at their highest intensity and vulnerable otherwise.
Spain’s big issue has been an inability to avoid committing too many players forward when their opponents are proving hard to break down. When the full-backs push high and every midfielder does the same, Jorge Vilda’s team are often left with two on two at the back. If their final opponent is able to cope with the overloads against them, they can mimic Japan’s approach and pick Spain off. Japan won 4-0 with 22 per cent possession.
Key player
Before the tournament, Alexia Putellas was the easy answer. But the doubts about her fitness (Putellas is another who has suffered an ACL injury and missed 10 months of football) have led to her being in and out of the first team.
Instead, it’s Aitana Bonmati who has taken on responsibility for leading the midfield. She has not performed at her highest level in every game – most notably against Japan. But then that is the point: Bonmati is Spain’s bellwether. When she plays well, this team purrs. Against Switzerland, she scored twice and assisted two other goals.
At her best, Bonmati becomes positionless. She starts in an advanced central midfield role but roams in search of the ball and mischief. She creates overlaps out wide, makes late dashes into the box or drops deep and then drives forward. She dictates a tempo that she then maintains. And if Spain win the final, she will probably be named the World Cup’s best player.
Manager
Jorge Vilda was comfortably the most controversial coach of the four semi-finalists. Last October, 15 players in the Spain squad wrote to the Royal Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) to make a number of detailed complaints about the conditions under their coach, which they claimed had negatively affected their physical and emotional wellbeing. The RFEF responded by backing Vilda.
Then, when Spain named their squad for the World Cup, all but three of those 15 players were omitted (the exceptions being Mariona Caldentey, Ona Batlle and Aitana Bonmati – three of the best players in the team). The insinuation is that Vilda dropped whoever he could to make his point: this team will work on his terms.
“If these three players are here it is because they are committed to the national team and by extension they can play in the World Cup,” said Vilda before the tournament, to which we will give a big “hmmm”. Just a coincidence that the best players in the rebel group were extra committed and so used to propel Spain – and by extension Vilda – forward.
There have been awkward moments, including when Vilda was left standing by himself as the players chose to celebrate their quarter-final victory over Netherlands with each other. But you also cannot doubt the record in this tournament, coming after two successive major tournaments without a knockout stage victory.
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