Key events
15 min: After some early Tottenham pressure, Leicester are looking dangerous on the attack. Janice Cayman wins the ball in the middle and slides a beautiful ball through to Deanne Rose on the left. She charges towards the byline and pulls it back Tierney. The midfielder’s first-time shot is tame though. It looks like it came off of her shin-pad.
GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 0-1 Leicester City (Rantala 12)
A trademark goal from Jutta Rantala. She receives the ball on the right and cuts in on her left foot on the edge of the box. She has time and space and lets off a rocket into the top right hand corner. What a finish!
9 min: Grace Clinton and Bizet are beginning to assert their dominance in this game. Bizet muscles Leicester City’s midfielders off the ball in the centre circle and starts an attack for the home side. Clinton and Bizet play a one-two to put Bizet through on goal again. This time her right-footed shot goes over the bar.
6 min: There’s another mistake at the back, this time from Leicester. Josie Green gives the ball away cheaply and Spurs almost make their opponents pay. Celin Bizet receives the ball on the left and is through on goal. Her left footed shot is straight at Lize Kop though. Let off for Leicester.
2 min: Eveliina Summanen makes a mistake with a loose back pass played towards Rebecca Spencer. Samantha Tierney immediately latches onto it but her shot is high and wide. Some early nerves from Tottenham?
Kick off
1 min: Leicester City get the game underway, kicking from left to right.
The excitement is building: The two teams make their way onto the field in front of the thousands of fans at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The players take some deep breaths and huddle round in their halves. They’re one game away from a cup final at Wembley!
Suzanne Wrack
Leicester City captain Aileen Wheelan spoke to The Guardian about today’s game. “I’m sure there will be a few nerves. But we’ve got experience that in the squad, a lot of players will have played at World Cups, Euros, etc. So, we’ll be relying on a lot of the experience that those players have had to help some of the younger ones or players that haven’t been in a similar situation before. It’s good to have nerves. As long as we’re able to turn that into adrenaline and the performance, I think we will be completely fine.”
Tottenham Hotspur’s manager Robert Vilahamn spoke to the press before today’s game. “We play for them [the fans]. We don’t play for ourselves. We want to make sure we can have a lot of fans in the stadium and make them proud because if we are going to reach the final, we need them. They give us that extra energy.”
“This is a bonus that we are in the semi-final. We didn’t really expect to go this far in the cup because we knew it’s a rebuilding year.”
Those teams
Both teams remain unchanged from their previous Women’s Super League matches before the international break. Tottenham beat Bristol City 1-0 in their last game while Leicester drew 2-2 with Aston Villa.
The teams
Tottenham Hotspur: Spencer, Neville, James-Turner, Bühler, Nildén, Spence, Summanen, Clinton, Bizet, Naz, England
Subs: Votíková, Bartrip, Grant, Petzelberger, Ahtinen, Graham, Vinberg, Wang, Thomas
Leicester City: Kop, Tierney, Bott, Howard, Rose, Rantala, Petermann, Cayman, Green, Takarada, Momiki
Subs: Leitzig, Thibaud, Palmer, Whelan, Pelgander, Siemsen, Goodwin, O’Brien, Baker
Preamble
Hello and welcome to this minute-by-minute coverage of the Women’s FA Cup semi-final between Tottenham Hotspur and Leicester City.
For Spurs, today is an opportunity to build on their dramatic quarter-final victory over Manchester City. Playing at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, they’ll be hoping their home fans can cheer them onto victory.
Leicester City stand in their way though, after they beat Liverpool 2-0 in their quarter-final. Leicester have had a challenging season with a much-discussed managerial change so today is a chance to focus on the football.
Both teams will be up for it as it is the first time the two sides have reached this stage of the competition. Kick off is at 12:00 BST.
