The England goalkeeper Carly Telford has spoken of her surprise at the response from the public to their World Cup “failure” as the team prepares to play in front of over 100,000 fans across their next two home friendlies.
England play Brazil in Middlesbrough on Saturday and then travel to face Portugal in Setúbal on Tuesday evening before hosting Germany at Wembley next month with over 75,000 tickets sold. Telford is confident they will perform better than they did in their post-World Cup, but pre-season, friendlies against Belgium and Norway – where they salvaged a 3-3 draw and suffered a 2-1 defeat respectively.
“When we came back from the World Cup we were all doom and gloom, we totally messed up,” said the 32-year-old on Wednesday. “When I got back, I was getting my hair done and the woman next to me was like: ‘Me and my husband and the boys stayed up and watched every game. You were brilliant. I don’t like football but I watched you girls, you were fantastic.’
“It was so weird. For us we had failed. But everyone else was like ‘yous were amazing’. I just couldn’t get my head around it. Everyone was so complimentary. I think it’s because for the first time 11.7 million have seen what the Lionesses were about and that was the difference. It’s not a small minority, it’s people that have never watched us before, really stood up and said ‘actually, I like the way this team plays’. Not the way the girls play, the way the team plays, that’s nice, people bought into the team regardless of our gender.
“We can make excuses, it was a bit of a World Cup hangover, I think we haven’t got a great track record after major tournaments, it’s always really bitty. But I think the difference now is that everyone is a few weeks into their seasons, everyone’s got that competitive edge back.
“The hardest thing, that people don’t realise, is the mental shift you have to have after a major tournament. Yes, you get a couple of weeks off, but I remember we got into our room [at the first camp] and Steph [Houghton] was like: ‘I don’t even think I’m over the World Cup,’ and I said: ‘I don’t think I am.’
“You put three years of effort into six weeks and the mental overload of ‘we’re going to win, we’re going to win’, and OK, you don’t fall at the first hurdle, you’re out in the semis, but then it’s ‘okay we’re going to get bronze’, and then you come out with nothing. I think you don’t realise how much that hits you.”
As well as being better mentally prepared for this camp, the physical difference is “huge”, according to Telford. “They send us on about 100 tours so you’re not even in the country for pre-season … and then you get sent on your national camp and pack your bags again and you’re off travelling. When does it stop? You’re just in this cycle, you feel like you’re a hamster on a wheel and then you get off and you’re on a wheel again.”
With Karen Bardsley injured Telford is likely to be in goal for most minutes of the two friendlies and since her first World Cup start she is hungrier than ever. “The Norway game, when I got subbed, I was frustrated, I went in and was like [she kicks a chair] … I just wanted to stay on the pitch. That’s it.
“I think that taste at the World Cup was like a drug, you don’t want to give it up. You thrive off it, the crowd, the moment the feeling, stood there it’s just brilliant, I think for me that was my big mindset change, that’s an experience I don’t want to give up and it makes you fight harder and puts you in a new space and a new place.”
