EDMONTON: Days after a gut-wrenching loss, England finished their deepest run in the Women’s World Cup with an uplifting victory. No last-minute heartbreak this time around.

A 108th-minute penalty kick by Fara Williams gave England their first ever win over top-ranked Germany and a third place finish at the Women’s World Cup on Saturday.

The 1-0 victory after 120 minutes of gritty battle at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium gave the sixth-ranked ‘Lionesses’ their first win over the European champions on their 21st attempt.

It also helped them gain some consolation for the injury time own-goal by defender Laura Bassett which had ended their title bid during a 2-1 semi-final loss to defending champions Japan and marks the best finish by an England team of either gender since the men’s team won the World Cup in 1966.

A fiercely competitive game, scoreless after 90 minutes, was decided three minutes into the second period of extra time when England sub Lianne Sanderson was pulled down in the box by Tabea Kemme and Williams coolly slotted home.

“These players are just incredible. Now it’s time for a massive celebration,” said England coach Mark Sampson. “This is the team we wanted to be. We wanted to show the nation that, look, we can be knocked down, but we can also get back up. And that’s what we did.

“It feels a lot better to be sitting here after that than it did the other day. I’m just incredibly proud of all the players and staff, to achieve a third place finish, to go home as the top European nation, to finally beat Germany, it was a real big statement for us today.”

For Germany, which lost 2-0 to the United States in the semi-finals on Tuesday, it was a disappointing finish for the two-time champions and raised further concerns about whether the nation’s women’s programme is beginning to slip.

Since winning back-to-back World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007, the eight-time European champions have a 2-3 post-preliminary round record in the past two tournaments.

Germany coach Silvia Neid, who will stand down next year, said she had no complaints about the penalty or the result.

“We fought, we worked very well and had chances but if you don’t score you aren’t going to win. The penalty was justified, we were very naive. It is sad but it is reality but England won and deserved to win,” she said.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2015

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