England were beaten by a Spain side worthy of victory, capitalising on a rare instance of England falling short of their usual standards
Michael CoxFootball matches are shaped by flow, and they’re decided by moments. You can argue that England only lost thefinal to Spain because of one moment, but ultimately they were second-best throughout the game.
Less than 10 minutes later, a good example of the other problem resulted in Spain’s first goal. A notable feature of their 2-1 semi-final victory over Sweden was how direct and aggressive left-back Olga Carmona was when she received the ball. She had two good long-range efforts in the first half of that game, before later winning the match with a spectacular goal from a corner worked to the edge of the box.
But it was a major surprise that the manager chose to sacrifice both Russo and Rachel Daly, two natural strikers, and players adept at getting on the end of crosses. It seemed a big risk considering England would, at some stage, surely be forced to go direct, putting high balls into the box. “When we had the ball, we couldn’t push up quick enough and we wanted to challenge them too. So we thought we needed to go back to 4-3-3. And we really wanted to keep Lauren Hemp in the centre with her speed. I think in the second half, we played better.”