Georgia Stanway displayed a confidence rarely seen from a player in an England shirt when she powerfully netted two crucial penalties to fire England into the quarter finals of the U-17 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Jordan, in a tense ‘win or go home’ final group game, reports KATIE MISHNER.
England have only participated in the U-17 Women’s World Cup once before on invitation and managed to reach the semi-final in 2008 in NZ. They were defeated on that occasion by Korea DPR, the other team from England’s group that join them in progressing to the knock out stage. The Young Lionesses will face holders Japan in the next round of the competition, just as they did in 2008 (a sensational game that went to extra time and penalties), in arguably their toughest test yet.
The match between John Griffith’s side and Brazil began nervously, given the importance of the outcome and that tension continued throughout the game, as the combined total of freekicks conceded racked up to a total of 20. The stop and start nature of the game meant that the play didn’t settle until 20 minutes in and by then Brazil had established themselves as the stronger link.
Despite this, Alessia Russo and Georgia Stanway were able to rip through the defence with their clever footwork but were held outside the box and unable to carve out any clear cut chances.
Brazil began to find their stride and to thrive under the pressure of the match and in the 36′ minute the seemingly inveitable happened as Kerolin caught out the defence by catching a high ball and hitting it past England no. 1 Ellie Roebuck.
The Canarinha’s nerves were visibly settled by the goal until Kemelli clumsily took out Anna Patten, picked up a yellow card and gifted England with their first penalty. Stanway displayed nerves of steel to step up and close the first half with a powerful strike into the top left hand corner.
Manchester City’s Georgia Stanway celebrates her first penalty goal.
(image via @England’s twitter)
Confidence didn’t come quite so quickly for England despite being on levels terms as Brazil continued to look the brighter sidein the second period. They moved the ball across the width of the pitch effectively and a second goal looked imminent. However the flow of the match was totally changed when defender Tainara sent Niamh Charles flying in the 60th minute.
Brazil had not learned their lesson but Stanway’s second penalty, which mirrored the finesse of the first, will be etched in their brains for a long time to come. The number 10 struck the ball perfectly and with plenty of malice, under the crossbar and into the net.
The Young Lionesses saw the game out with a composure well beyond their years but Player of the Match Alessia Russo said that it’s something they’ve encoutered before as a team:
“We’ve been in these scenarios before, in order to qualify for the World Cup we had to beat Norway and we won 2-1,”
That was part of the game plan, to kill the game, all our players know what they’re supposed to do and we have a strong bond, so we know when we have to do it.”
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