A stunning three goals in 30 minutes against their World Cup Group D opponents, Japan, handed England a first-ever SheBelieves Cup at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium. This may just be a friendly tournament and both teams may have played weakened sides, neither wanting to show their hand ahead of their meeting in the summer, but the manner of Lionesses’ performance will excite ahead of France.
Jodie Taylor, handed her first start, led the line brilliantly, providing two assists – the first to Lucy Staniforth, the second to Karen Carney – while Beth Mead reiterated her claim for a more regular starting spot with a blistering near-post strike to treble the margin.
Despite the chance to get their hands on a trophy, albeit a pretty meaningless one, Phil Neville stuck to script of having faith in all of his players. “If I can’t trust them here, I can’t trust them in France,” he said. So the changes were rung, eight in total, giving almost the entire squad minutes in this tournament.
While not necessarily the 11 best individuals at his disposal, the difference in this third and final game was that all on the field were being playing much closer to their natural positions.
“You play well against the USA and beat Brazil and then the players look at you and say, ‘you’ve shouted your mouth off for the last 12 months about your trust in the team, let’s see what you’ve got’,” said Neville. “There’s no doubt in my mind that when we did the huddle after the US game, I told all the players that didn’t play that they were going to be taking part.
“It probably shocked them a little bit but I’m not going to compromise on that. I’ve think you’ve seen tonight that we give a lot of opportunities to people and some have taken it.
“You don’t get togetherness with just 11 players. I learnt [that] in my career, because I wasn’t one of the 11 players all the time, but I was given opportunities. We’re always as good as the bench, our strength comes from the bench, and including everyone, trusting everyone, believing in everyone, everyone knowing the system, has meant that tonight we’ve gone out there and we’ve won the SheBelieves Cup.”
With the chance to stake a claim for World Cup consideration, in a formation suited to them as individuals, they grafted.
This Japan team are no pushovers. Having held the world champions, the US, to a 2-2 draw they emphatically finished off Brazil 3-1. The Lionesses and Japan have history and a future. Laura Bassett’s 92nd minute own goal sent England crashing out of the 2015 World Cup at the semi-final stage, while they will face each other in their final group game in France on 19 June.
It took just 12 minutes for England to make their mark. Taylor found Staniforth with space in the middle and her low strike from the edge of the D slipped past Erina Yamane. Then Taylor was at it again, this time holding off Risako Oga at the byline before whipping a short cross onto the head of Karen Carney, who nodded home.
“She has not played in five months and I thought today she was unbelievable,” said Neville of Taylor. “I did not expect that kind of performance level. With no minutes under her belt the amount of work she has put in in the last month has been phenomenal.”
It took until the 29th minute for Japan to have their first sight of goal, Moeno Sakaguchi hitting the ball from distance, but Carly Telford was alert to the danger.
On the half-hour mark England had a third. Keira Walsh, spotting Mead in acres of space on the right, curled the ball delightfully around the Japanese defence. Mead sprinted into the space, cut infield and hammered an emphatic finish past Yamane at the near post.
Walsh was “outstanding”, said Neville. “I wanted to rest her today, that was probably my biggest decision. You look at her maturity, her personality is coming out now. I gave her the captaincy in Kazakhstan for a reason and that was to give her the confidence and belief that the coach trusts her. We’ve had our ups and downs in a coach-player relationship. I left her out of the Bosnia game and she wasn’t happy, I rested her for the Brazil game last year – I’ve been tough on her to be honest with you.
“There has probably been times when she thought ‘my coach doesn’t believe in me’. But it’s part of the bigger picture of geeing her up. Of midfield players in this tournament, I think she’s been the best.”
With the clock ticking towards half-time, England continued to press. A Lucy Bronze cross was dummied by Taylor with Izzy Christiansen arriving behind but Risa Shimizu got there first, colliding with the Lyon midfielder and forcing her withdrawal for Georgia Stanway. It did not take long for the Manchester City youngster to assert herself, chipping a ball over the top to Taylor, whose effort rolled just wide of the far post.
Rattled, Japan made four changes at the break, and they looked sharper in possession for it. Kumi Yokoyama played through her fellow substitute, Rikako Kobayashi, but her shot from the edge of the box skimmed wide. In the 53rd minute Japan’s best chance fell to Aya Sameshima. Collecting the ball from Yui Hasegawa on the left, she cut inside before blasting her shot over the bar.
With a host of further substitutions the flow of the game dipped further, and England were happy to rest on their first-half cushion. It may be a friendly, and England’s celebrations should be adjusted as such, but beating both the US and the 2015 runners-up three months before they kick off in France got the stomach fluttering a little.
Neville, though, had already moved on. “I feel a bit flat to be honest with you, we want to go again in three days time. We quite like the intensity of these games,” he said.
“Throughout my life I’ve always moved on pretty quickly. On 87 minutes I’ve already moved on, I moved on to April camp and started planning April camp and that’s how it’s got to be really. This is nice, we’re happy, but for me it’s small compared to where we want to be and it’s just the first step on the ladder.”
