Japan 2-1 England
by Asif Burhan
in Edmonton

ENGLAND coach Mark Sampson hailed Laura Bassett yesterday as “epitomising what our team is about” after the Lionesses crashed out of the Women’s World Cup semi-finals at the hands of Japan.

Despite playing some of the best football of her life, a stroke of bad luck led to Bassett scoring a decisive own-goal after a physically draining match.

Yet the mark that England left on the seventh Fifa Women’s World Cup is much more than what the results say.

They started brightly and confidently. As in the quarter-final, Jodie Taylor was the scourge of the opposition defence.

Toni Duggan, brought in to replace Karen Carney, had her finest match of the tournament, repeatedly forcing her way through challenges down the left and firing powerfully just over from the angle.

Japan always had more possession but rarely looked dangerous until they were given a dubious penalty when Clare Rafferty ran into the back of Saori Ariyoshi after being caught out of position. Aya Miyama’s trademark stuttering run-up brought boos from the crowd but she was deaf to them as she confidently sent Karen Bardsley the wrong way to score her third World Cup goal against England.

England’s best hope of a response always looked like it might come from a set piece and so it proved. Japan failed to deal with a Fara Williams corner and Steph Houghton went to ground when she felt a challenge from Yuki Ogimi. Under great pressure, Williams’s penalty was perfection.

As the temperature cooled at the start of the second half so England turned up the heat on the world champions, pinning them back and creating chance after chance.

Just before the end of the game the Japanese substitutes gathered next to the bench as if concocting a master plan for extra time. It was never needed.

After the huge physical effort England had put in, they began to flag. Laura Bassett’s mistake in deflecting the ball over Bardsley was born of fatigue. If she had missed the ball, Houghton would have beaten the Japanese attacker to it and cleared.

Even if England have departed too early, what a journey it has been.