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      Nike Says It Will Offer Mary Earps’s Goalkeeper Jersey

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      After being criticized for not offering replicas of the jerseys worn by the English goalkeeper Mary Earps and others in the Women’s World Cup, Nike said limited quantities would be available.With each breathtaking save made by Mary Earps, the goalkeeper who helped England’s national team take second place in the Women’s World Cup, the complaints from fans got louder: Why couldn’t they buy a replica of her Nike jersey?Nike, which outfitted the team, has attempted to present itself as being ahead of the curve in terms of offering support to female athletes and emerging sports talent. Though the company, the world’s largest sportswear maker by sales, acknowledged fans’ interest in replica goalkeeper jerseys, it initially did not commit to making them.That changed on Wednesday, after thousands of people had signed a petition requesting that replicas of the jerseys worn by Ms. Earps and other women goalkeepers be released, and after a motion addressing the issue was submitted in the British Parliament.“Nike has secured limited quantities of goalkeeper jerseys for England, U.S., France and the Netherlands to be sold through the federation websites over the coming days, and we are also in conversations with our other federation partners,” a spokeswoman for Nike said in a statement emailed to The New York Times on Wednesday evening, referring to members of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body.Nike is “committed to retailing women’s goalkeeping jerseys for major tournaments in the future,” the spokeswoman said in the statement, which did not specify how many jerseys would be available or when they could be purchased.In the days before, Nike, which outfitted 13 of the 32 teams in the Women’s World Cup, had faced an escalating backlash from soccer fans on the issue. (Replica goalkeeper jerseys were available for four of the men’s teams Nike sponsored in last year’s World Cup.)Many of the complaints centered around Ms. Earps, 30, who received the Golden Glove, an award recognizing the top goalkeeper in the tournament. “She’s the best in the world right now, and she doesn’t have a jersey,” Beth Mead, who has played for England’s women’s national team, told the BBC. “She doesn’t have a shirt that young boys and girls can buy.”Why wouldn’t Nike want to offer replica jerseys for popular goalkeepers?In the past, goalkeeper jerseys have not been best sellers for athletic-wear companies, for a few reasons.With a few exceptions, goalkeepers typically do not cultivate the kind of passionate fan base that other players like forwards can, meaning potentially fewer jersey sales.A goalkeeper’s jersey is also different from that of other teammates to ensure they stand out on the field. (Ms. Earps’s World Cup jerseys were emerald green and pink; her teammates’ were blue and white.) While a team’s main shirt can be produced en masse — with versions for various players requiring a simple name change on the back — a goalkeeper’s jersey requires a much smaller and more customized manufacturing run.Though interest in women’s soccer has risen, the sport still drives fewer apparel sales globally compared to men’s soccer.Did other brands make jerseys for goalkeepers playing in the Women’s World Cup?Adidas, which outfitted 10 teams for the tournament, did not offer replica goalkeeper jerseys. Neither did Puma, which made kits for Morocco and Switzerland.But Hummel, which made jerseys for Denmark’s national women’s team, and Castore, which made them for Ireland, each have released replica goalkeeper jerseys for those teams.How did the controversy start?At a news conference at the start of the Women’s World Cup, Ms. Earps expressed frustration about Nike’s decision not to offer replicas of the jerseys worn by participating teams’ goalkeepers. “It is hugely disappointing and very hurtful,” she said, adding that she had sought talks with both Nike and the Football Association, the governing body for English soccer, after England won the European Women’s Championship tournament last year.Ms. Earps, who is a goalkeeper for Manchester United in the Women’s Super League, also pushed back on the idea that her jersey would not sell. “My shirt on the Manchester United website was sold out last season,” she said.By the time England faced off against Spain in the Women’s World Cup final, Ms. Earps had made several vital saves that helped keep her team in the tournament. Her star performance only intensified questions about Nike’s decision.David Seaman, a former goalkeeper for Arsenal and England’s men’s national team, posted a message of support for Ms. Earps while she was playing in the final. “Bet Nike are regretting not selling the #maryearps shirt now,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.Another post on X shared that day read in part: “My 10 year old daughter is the goalie in her school team. She’s just gone online to buy a jersey for next year and wanted one like Mary Earps’s only to find Nike don’t do one. ‘That’s a bit stupid’ she said.”In the absence of an official replica jersey by Nike, some of Ms. Earps’s fans made their own jerseys using tape. Several small retailers also started manufacturing jerseys similar to her Nike shirt.How did Nike respond at first?In a statement released after the Women’s World Cup final on Sunday, which England lost 1-0 to Spain, Nike tried to put the focus on the future.“We are working toward solutions for future tournaments in partnership with FIFA and the federations,” the company said. “The fact that there’s a conversation on this topic is a testament to the continued passion and energy around the women’s game, and we believe that’s encouraging.”That did not satisfy Ms. Earps. On Tuesday, she reposted Nike’s statement to her Instagram account, adding the text: “Is this your version of an apology/taking accountability/a powerful statement of intent?”In another Instagram post, she shared a link to a Change.org petition that had been created in her support. It has received more than 150,000 signatures.Ms. Earps, through a representative, declined to comment for this article.How did Parliament get involved?This week, Tracey Crouch, a member of Parliament and former sports minister, submitted a motion calling on Nike to release a jersey for Ms. Earps.Nike “could have changed this,” Ms. Crouch wrote in an essay published in The Independent on Wednesday. “They still can if they take their fingers out of their tin ears and listen to the hundreds of thousands of women who have signed the petition, gone on social media, listened to the outcry on the media.”The change of course by Nike, and the loud online chorus that apparently prompted it, underscore the growing influence of the global women’s game and its major names. More

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      Spanish Fans Rejoice at World Cup Win

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      The final against England brought out fans of all stripes and rallied girls in both countries to hit the field and play.In the game’s last seconds, Ona Sánchez couldn’t sit still. Then, when the referee finally blew the whistle to confirm that Spain had won the Women’s World Cup, she and the crowd around her — girls, boys, parents and other fans who had gathered to watch the match in Sant Pere de Ribes, near Barcelona — erupted in cheers.“Campeonas! Campeonas! Olé, olé, olé!” Ona and her friend Laura Solorzano, both 11, and draped together in a Spanish flag, sang in the small town’s central cobblestone square as other supporters splashed water from a nearby fountain. The two friends, both players in a local soccer club, said they couldn’t have hoped for a better ending.“It was the first time I watched a World Cup,” Ona said, emerging from a group of dancing children. “And we won! I’m so happy! It fills me with hope.”Laura Solorzano, left, and Ona Sánchez, both 11, seconds after Spain won the Women’s World Cup.Constant Méheut/The New York TimesSpain’s first victory in the Women’s World Cup and England’s run to the final were not only formidable achievements for teams that have transformed into perennial title contenders in the space of just a few years. They were also a fortifying message to the many girls in both countries who have increasingly been taking up the sport: Women, too, can elevate a nation to the summit of world soccer.The final has reflected the increasing interest and investment in women’s soccer in Spain and England, with more and more girls joining clubs and leagues that are growing in size and professionalism — a profound change in countries where soccer was long the preserve of all-powerful men’s teams, and one that is likely to accelerate after this year’s World Cup.“The perception of women’s soccer has changed,” said Dolors Ribalta Alcalde, a specialist in women’s sports at Ramon Llull University in Barcelona. “It is now seen as a real and exciting opportunity for girls. This World Cup, with its high profile, will have an impact on how people view women’s soccer. It will help make a big step forward.”In England, the mood was more somber as the national team’s hopes to follow up its European Championship victory were dashed. Even so, professional and recreational leagues have seen a surge of interest in recent years from women and girls, in a nation that has considered itself the spiritual home of the game. The advancement of the Lionesses to the final has only fueled that optimism.England fans watching in London. Interest in women’s soccer has surged in Britain.Henry Nicholls/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It’s a catalyst for change,” said Shani Glover, an equal game ambassador for the London Football Association, which has pledged to encourage women and girls to play at both professional and recreational levels. An advocate for that shift, Ms. Glover said she had seen growing interest in girls signing up to the sport, particularly after England’s European Championship win. “Having the women center stage — it shifts the public’s mind-set,” she said.“If it was like before, I wouldn’t feel motivated; it was quite isolated,” Cerys Davies, 15, said while watching the final from an East London community center. Cerys trains several times a week at a football academy focused on giving underprivileged players a pathway to elite careers. “It’s good that women are getting the recognition and support they need,” she said, adding that she was heartened to see the crowds in the stadium for the final. “It allows me to know that I’ll be supported,” she said.Cerys Davies, 15, trains several times a week at a football academy focused on giving underprivileged players a pathway to elite careers.Isabella Kwai/The New York TimesIn Sant Pere de Ribes, residents did not have to wait for this year’s World Cup to benefit from the new spotlight on women’s soccer.Aitana Bonmatí, the Spanish star midfielder who was named the tournament’s best player, grew up in the town and played for the local youth soccer club for several years. As Ms. Bonmatí rose to success, many girls took up soccer, hoping to follow in her footsteps.“Our club has grown a lot,” said Tino Herrero Cervera, the club’s manager, noting that the number of girls’ teams has jumped from one to 10 since 2014. Girls now make up a third of the club’s players.“To see Aitana become such a great player motivates me,” said Laura, who wants to become a soccer pro herself. Her team won a youth league championship this year with a 14-point lead over the runner-up.“They’re the next Aitana,” Mr. Herrero said of Laura and Ona, grinning. He added that the high caliber of the girls’ play had helped the club rise in the league rankings. “It’s simple,” he said, “we want more girls to play.”Tino Herrero Cervera, the manager of the local youth soccer club, in Sant Pere de Ribes, south of Barcelona.Constant Méheut/The New York TimesThat has not always been the case. Dr. Ribalta, the sports academic, also oversees women’s soccer at Espanyol, a professional club in Barcelona, where she previously played for over a decade. “A girl playing soccer used to be a trauma for the family,” she said.Until recently, she said, female players were sometimes insulted on the pitch and denied access to proper training equipment and professional coaches, and they had to reconcile their sporting ambitions with the impossibility of earning a living from soccer.Women’s soccer teams were long disregarded — if not simply banned, as was the case in England in 1921. The country’s Football Association was alarmed by the popularity of women’s games, which had gained a following while the men’s league was suspended during World War I. The ban was in place for 50 years.In Spain, the women’s national team long lacked elite training facilities and even jerseys designed to be worn by women. It reached its first Women’s World Cup only in 2015, under a long-serving coach infamous for dismissing the players as “chavalitas,” or immature girls.Change came only in recent years. England created a professional domestic league for women in 2018, and Spain followed suit three years later. Corporate sponsors flocked in and elite women’s clubs such as Arsenal and Barcelona Femení started to attract more attention. The Barcelona team won two of the past three editions of the Women’s Champions League.Barcelona players celebrating after winning the Women’s Champions League final against Germany’s Wolfsburg in June.John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThat trend is filtering down to smaller and more amateur leagues, as well as younger players. In England, the number of teams playing in one girls’ league at Hackney Marshes, a famed playing ground for recreational soccer in East London, expanded to 44 teams from 26 in one season. In Spain, the number of registered female players has more than doubled since 2015, reaching nearly 90,000 today.That is still a far cry from the hundreds of thousands of men playing in both countries. But many are convinced that this year’s World Cup will inspire more girls to take up soccer and join talented youth teams, a pipeline for national women’s teams.“Many girls have watched these players on big screens for several weeks and followed them on social media,” said Soraya Chaoui López, the founder of the Women’s Soccer School in Barcelona, an academy begun in 2017 to help girls play soccer and to promote the role of women in the sport. “They are references they will listen to and imitate. They can look forward to becoming professional players themselves now.”Destiny Richardson, 14, left, and Dejaunel Bass, 15, watched the World Cup final on Sunday in London.Isabella Kwai/The New York TimesLooking up at the faces of the Lionesses loom on the screen in London, Destiny Richardson, 14, said, “Even if we come second, it’s still good.”She added that she was inspired as a player, saying, “You want to be there one day.”In London, a rare young player elated by the win was Mariam Vasquez, 9, who cheered when Spain triumphed, in honor of her family’s Spanish side.“I’m so happy to be with her to watch it,” her mother, Hind Aisha, said, adding that the whole family was supporting Mariam’s own soccer dreams. “I’m very proud — it’s a women’s game.” More

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      Women’s World Cup Final Reminds England of Men’s Team’s Painful History

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      The women play Spain on Sunday, hoping to end a nearly six-decade national wait for a World Cup win — a reminder of the travails of the Three Lions, the country’s long-suffering men’s team.In London, theatergoers have flocked to “Dear England,” a hit play that chronicles the drama and anguish of the men’s national soccer team in its long quest for another World Cup title, now at 57 years and counting. In Sydney on Sunday, the England women’s team might finally get the job done.England will face off against Spain in the Women’s World Cup final, the first for either team. While they are closely matched, England’s impressive march through the tournament has spurred hopes that “football’s coming home,” in the ever-optimistic words of “The Three Lions,” the unofficial anthem of the men’s team.That the Lionesses, not the Lions, might bring it home is a twist that has beguiled and bemused people in a country where the painful history of the men’s team — a litany of blown chances, unfulfilled promise and knockout losses (particularly to Germany and particularly after penalties) — is deeply engraved in the national psyche.“It’s hard to deny that this is really a big moment for the women’s game here,” said John Williams, a sports sociologist at the University of Leicester in England. “But it doesn’t take the monkey off the men’s backs. If anything, it makes them look even less formidable and more culpable, if women do the job.”In a country that claims to be the spiritual home of the game, winning is winning — and men and women, young and old, are rooting for the Lionesses. “As long as it’s England, I don’t care who’s bringing football home,” said Brad Jones, 25, a consultant from Bristol who was riding the underground in London on Friday.Watching the semifinal against Australia in London on Wednesday. “It’s hard to deny that this is really a big moment for the women’s game here,” a sports sociologist in England said.Frank Augstein/Associated PressYet the vexed history of the men’s team, in a country that also views soccer as a vital expression of male camaraderie, has prompted criticism that the women are not receiving the same treatment that their brethren would.The government has ruled out declaring a bank holiday — British parlance for a national day off — if England wins. Critics said that officials would do that without thinking if the men’s team ever claimed another World Cup. Neither Prime Minister Rishi Sunak nor Prince William, who is the president of the Football Association, plans to travel to Australia to watch the game.Queen Elizabeth II attended the World Cup final in 1966, the last and only time England won (prevailing against West Germany, 4-2, after extra time, on home turf). She presented the trophy to the England captain, Bobby Moore. Spain plans to send Queen Letizia and her 16-year-old daughter, the Infanta Sofía, to the final in Sydney.“When the Spanish team look up at the stands on Sunday morning, they will see their queen,” the columnist A.N. Wilson wrote scoldingly in The Daily Mail, a British tabloid. “When our brave Lionesses strain their eyes to see a British grandee,” he noted, “they will be forgiven for not recognizing anyone at all.”Even pubs may not be able to serve pints before kickoff, which is at 11 a.m. in Britain, because of restrictions on serving alcohol on Sunday mornings. The government rejected a theatrical call by the opposition Liberal Democrats to recall Parliament to pass legislation relaxing the rules. But a senior minister, Michael Gove, wrote to local councils to urge them to allow pubs to open an hour earlier than normal.Outside 10 Downing Street on Friday. The government has ruled out declaring a national holiday even if England wins the final.Susannah Ireland/ReutersFans, Mr. Gove said, should be able to “come together and enjoy a drink before kickoff for this special occasion,” adding, “the whole nation is ready to get behind the Lionesses this Sunday in what is England’s biggest game since 1966.”Strictly speaking, Mr. Gove has a point regarding the game’s significance. But the reality is more nuanced. The women already won the European title last year, which brought the first major soccer cup back to England since 1966.For the men, it is the losses, not the victories, that have defined the team’s narrative. In December, England was dismissed by France in a World Cup quarterfinal in Qatar. In July 2021, at the European final, it lost to Italy in a penalty shootout that left the crowd of 67,000 at Wembley Stadium in shock and despair.That heartbreak is captured in “Dear England,” as is another infamous missed penalty kick, by Gareth Southgate, an England player who is now the team’s coach, at a semifinal against Germany in 1996. The lingering shadow of those defeats is part of the lore of English football, which is balanced against the exuberant, diverse, and politically aware squad that Mr. Southgate has since assembled.England’s male players have forced Britain to confront fraught issues, kneeling before games to protest racial injustice, for example. After three young Black players missed penalty kicks in the 2021 defeat, they were subjected to racist slurs.The women’s team is less racially diverse than the men’s team, with only two Black players on the current roster. Professor Williams, the sports sociologist, said that representation reflected the development of women’s soccer in England as a suburban, middle-class sport, much as it is in the United States. But unlike the American women’s team — or, for that matter, the England men — the Lionesses have generally stayed out of the political fray.“None of the team are known for being politically outspoken,” Professor Williams said. “They don’t have the dimension that Megan Rapinoe brought to the U.S.A. team,” he added, referring to the star American winger who campaigns for gay and lesbian rights and has been vilified by some on the political right, much as some male England players have been criticized by right-wing figures in Britain for their political statements.England’s women are known mostly for their tight cohesion and relentless drive on the field. Their no-nonsense Dutch coach, Sarina Wiegman, is a former player who has already taken her home country’s team to a World Cup final, where it lost to the United States. She has no reluctance in running up the score against weaker opponents.England’s coach, Sarina Wiegman, center, before the start of the semifinal. A former player, she has already taken her home country’s team to the World Cup final, losing to the United States in 2019.Carl Recine/ReutersStill, merely by being women in a sport dominated globally by men, England’s players are part of a longer social story. The country’s Football Association barred women from professional soccer in 1921, in part out of a fear that the women’s game had become too popular during the suspension of men’s games because of World War I.The 1966 World Cup victory rekindled interest in women’s soccer, but the Football Association took over responsibility for the women’s game again only in the 1990s. Its profile has grown quickly in recent years as Premier League teams, particularly Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City, have fielded elite women’s teams.Another storied club, Manchester United, reportedly wants to consult its female players — four of whom are members of the national team — in deciding whether to reinstate a star forward, Mason Greenwood, after charges of attempted rape and assault against him were dropped in February.To some sports commentators, that attempt to show gender sensitivity ended up as an ill-timed distraction for players prepping for a World Cup final.For all the advances in women’s soccer — whether increased television coverage or the improved quality of play — one difference is glaring: Men are paid more than women. Even England’s best players — the likes of the captain, Millie Bright; the striker Alessia Russo; or Lauren James, one of this tournament’s breakout stars — earn a small fraction in comparison with their male counterparts.Women’s games also tend to draw more families with children than men’s matches do, Professor Williams said, and the atmosphere can seem less tribal, aggressive and alcohol-fueled.“You’ve got some male fans who are saying, ‘It’s about time. The quality of women’s football is much better,’” he said. “But it’s clear there’s a rump of male supporters who say this is all a big waste of time. They say, ‘Watching football is a how we get away from women.’”Passing through Victoria Station in London on Friday, Lyndsey Jefford, 45, an elementary-school principal, said, “It’s made me really proud to see how well the women have done, though it still upsets me when people dismiss women’s football by saying the men play a different game.”Declan Bird, 24, who works in digital marketing, agreed that it did not much matter whether England’s men or women won the World Cup. And he pointed to a useful potential benefit of a women’s victory.“Hopefully,” he said, “it inspires the men’s team.”The midfielder Ella Toone scoring England’s opening goal in the 3-1 win over Australia on Wednesday.Jaimi Joy/ReutersNatasha Frost More

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      Kerr Scored. The Crowd Roared. But England Wasn’t Done.

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      England advanced to its first World Cup final by leaning on the experience and the resilience of a champion.The entire continent of Australia had been waiting not so patiently for the moment that finally arrived in the 63rd minute of Wednesday night’s Women’s World Cup semifinal between Australia and England.Collecting the ball in her own half and crossing the midfield line, Sam Kerr was off. Head down, driving forward, she took a couple of quick dribbles, then a few more, then nudged the ball ahead of her right foot and fired. Her shot, struck hard and high from just outside the penalty area, soared past the reach of England goalkeeper Mary Earps.Kerr had wheeled away in celebration by then, even before the ball had settled into the net, and the home crowd inside Stadium Australia let out a deafening and sustained roar. Australia had pulled even with England, and for the first time in the match, it seemed as if the English might be on the ropes.THAT’S ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT 🤩GOLAZOOO SAM KERR 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/Gnts261nW2— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) August 16, 2023
      Maybe a previous version of the team would have been. But this England team scored eight minutes later to pull back ahead, and then added a third goal in the 86th minute. It had, in less than half an hour, turned a tenuous moment into its most dominant finish of this tournament, a 3-1 victory over Australia that sent the Lionesses to their first World Cup final, where they will face Spain on Sunday.“We’ve got that in this team,” England defender Lucy Bronze said. “We’ve got resilience. We’ve got an inner belief that, I think, is bigger and better than we have ever had previously.”Bronze was part of the England squads that lost in the World Cup semifinals in 2015 and 2019, disappointments that she has admitted have lingered with her. Getting over that hump in this tournament was hardly a linear path, even after England won the European Championship last year on home soil.England arrived at the World Cup last month without three of its top players, all sidelined with knee injuries, and it has played its past two games without its initial breakout star here, midfielder Lauren James, who served a two-game suspension for stamping on a Nigerian player in the round of 16.Coach Sarina Wiegman also pointed out that her players have faced added attention since winning the Euros, which can bring new challenges and absolutely brings heightened expectations. On Wednesday, though, England looked all the better for that experience — a seasoned team that thrived, rather than crumbled, under pressure.Australia’s Mackenzie Arnold was beaten three times on Wednesday.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake/Reuters“I don’t think anything fazes us,” said midfielder Ella Toone, who scored England’s first goal, before halftime. “We’ve faced a lot of challenges this tournament that we’ve just got on with and got through.”Indeed, a theme of this tournament has been England’s finding a way to win, even as it has taken a while to find the dominant form many had expected. In their early matches, the Lionesses relied on strong defense and Earps’s steady goalkeeping as they struggled to score. Against Australia, though, it was their goals that silenced an expectant home crowd.Having the stadium backing the other team was nothing new, of course. Bronze referred back to England’s 2-1 quarterfinal win against Colombia, when the Lionesses fell into an early deficit in front of another crowd that also heavily favored their opponent. The visceral release inside the stadium after Kerr’s goal was at a different level. While those kinds of moments are expected from Kerr — even if she was not entirely healthy coming off her calf injury — defender Jess Carter said England’s back line was still disappointed to have allowed her goal, frustrated because they felt as if they should have handled it better.The next few minutes felt a little bit shaky, Wiegman admitted, as the replays of the goal on the stadium video screens wound up the fans again and the noise continued to reverberate. Kerr got another chance on a header, and then another. Earps appeared to signal to her teammates to settle down. The only way through, England knew, was to stick to the game plan, and hold its nerve.“I thought we did really well, but we have done that really well the whole tournament so far,” Wiegman said. “And then, of course, it didn’t take that long before we scored a second goal. And that helps.”Alessia Russo sensed her clinching goal was in even before it crossed the line.Mark Baker/Associated PressThat may be the quiet strength of these England players: They have won in different ways this tournament, changing their tactics to suit their opponents, adapting on the fly when those tactics aren’t working, holding teams off until someone, somehow, conjures a goal. But it was the way they responded to Kerr’s equalizer that demonstrated above all else why they will be playing in the World Cup final.Forward Lauren Hemp scored in the 71st minute, off a long and searching pass by Millie Bright, England’s captain. Fifteen minutes after that, Alessia Russo delivered the final blow: a low right-footed shot after a driving run up the center by Hemp.Just as Kerr had done, Russo wheeled away to start her celebration even before the ball had settled into the net. She knew, England knew, the job was done, and the final beckoned. On the bench, Wiegman finally let herself relax.“We are not,” she thought, “going to give this away anymore.” More

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      England, Bruised but Unbowed, Reaches World Cup Semifinals

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      The Lionesses, champions of Europe, rallied past Colombia but now face yet another hurdle: a semifinal with host Australia on Wednesday.England entered the World Cup knockout stages still waiting to look like the dominant team it had hoped it could be. Sure, England had yet to lose a game — an accomplishment during this chaotic tournament — but so far its performances had seemed a few rungs short of the level required to accomplish its goals: to reach its first final, to lift the World Cup trophy for the first time.England had arrived in Australia last month without three of the country’s best players, all ruled out because of serious knee injuries. Another starter was hurt in the group stage and missed a game and a half. Then the Lionesses lost their best offensive player at this World Cup, the young midfielder Lauren James, to a suspension after she stamped on a Nigerian player in the round of 16.But on Saturday night, in front of a Sydney crowd that presented yet another hurdle by favoring the upstart Colombians as the host nation’s preferred next opponent, England found a way forward again.Overcoming an early goal with one of their own just before halftime and a second midway through the second half, the Lionesses delivered the kind of performance they had been saying was just around the corner, beating Colombia, 2-1, to advance to the semifinals for the second straight World Cup.There, England will face Australia, which hours earlier had claimed its place by winning an extended penalty shootout against France up the coast in Brisbane.“We have been put up against a lot this tournament,” said forward Alessia Russo, “and we always find a way through.”Russo scored the winner in the 63rd minute, a right-footed finish after an assist from midfielder Georgia Stanway and a momentary lapse by Colombia’s defense that sent her in alone. Her coach and teammates used the word “clinical” to describe both Russo’s shot and the team’s focus, refusing to panic despite falling behind.England’s Lauren Hemp challenging for a ball in midfield.Mark Baker/Associated PressThe stands were late to fill up at the start of the match, as many of the spectators appeared to be lingering outside, part of a raucous crowd in Cathy Freeman Park watching Australia edge France on an outdoor viewing screen. But when they did, it was clear the crowd favored the Colombians, who entered, against all odds, as the last team from the Americas still standing.Those supporters erupted when Colombia midfielder Leicy Santos opened the scoring from the right side of the penalty area in the 44th minute, her shot arcing just over the outstretched right glove of England goalkeeper Mary Earps, who had surrendered only one other goal all tournament.Surprised by the goal, England was reminded by its captain, Millie Bright, to stick to its game plan, to trust that its chances would come, too. Lauren Hemp provided the evidence almost immediately, tying the score only seconds before halftime by pouncing on a free rebound after Colombia’s goalkeeper fumbled the ball just steps from her goal line.England, the reigning European champion and a World Cup semifinalist four years ago in France, entered this tournament as a top contender but a wounded one, having lost forward Beth Mead, midfielder Fran Kirby and defender Leah Williamson to serious knee injuries in the months before the World Cup. The depth that had delivered a title at last summer’s Euros offered a measure of comfort for Coach Sarina Wiegman and her team, but a lack of goals that had marked the team’s run-up to the tournament showed no sign of abating once it began.Apart from a 6-1 win against China in the group stage, England had struggled to score, relying instead on Earps and a veteran defense. England produced single goals in its other two wins in the group stage, against Haiti and Denmark, and none at all in its round-of-16 win over Nigeria, which was only settled in a penalty-kick shootout after 120 scoreless minutes.Two goals against Colombia will not answer all of those questions for England, but the Lionesses turned in a far stronger showing than they had in the previous round. For one day at least, that counted as a positive.“You want to get better as the tournament goes, and I think we did just that tonight,” forward Chloe Kelly said.England will face an even taller task in the next round against Australia in front of another crowd even more eager to see it defeated. It will again be without James, whose two-game ban means she will miss the semifinal, too. But for Wiegman, neither the fans nor the stakes will be England’s biggest challenge.“No, it’s the opponent,” Wiegman said. “And ourselves.” More

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      England’s Lauren James Gets 2-Game Ban at Women’s World Cup

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      The LatestLauren James, a top player for England in the Women’s World Cup, was given a two-game suspension by FIFA, soccer’s governing body, for stepping on the back of an opposing player in her team’s round-of-16 win against Nigeria on Monday in Brisbane, Australia. If she does return in this tournament, it will be in the final.James received a red card near the end of regulation time because she stamped on the back of Michelle Alozie as Alozie was getting up from a foul. England went on to win on penalties after 120 minutes with no goals.The red card meant that James was automatically suspended for England’s quarterfinal game on Saturday against Colombia. But FIFA’s disciplinary committee, it was announced Thursday, added an additional game because her violation was for violent conduct.“The suspension will be served for the FIFA Women’s World Cup quarterfinal and the next international fixture following that,” FIFA said in a statement.Lauren James has apologized for stepping on Nigeria defender Michelle Alozie in Monday’s game.Patrick Hamilton/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesWhy It Matters: James has been one of England’s top players.James, with three goals in this tournament, had been England’s most exciting player. She had accounted for five goals in a win over China in the group stage, with three assists, two goals and a potential third called back because one of her teammates was offside.England is one of the top teams remaining, especially after the eliminations of the United States and Germany, and James’s presence helped the Lionesses overcome injuries to other key players.Background: The violation came near the end of a physical game.England’s game against Nigeria was a tough, back-and-forth contest in which Nigeria was playing aggressively and England seemed to be holding on. Nigeria, having seen James’s success in the tournament, kept a defender on her as much as possible. As a result, James touched the ball less often than she wanted to.Alozie acknowledged the game’s intensity in a post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “This game is one of passion, insurmountable emotions, and moments,” she wrote. “All respect for Lauren James.”James responded with an apology: “I am sorry for what happened.”What’s Next: England faces Colombia in a quarterfinal on Saturday.James can return for the World Cup final if England can win two games without her. Its next game is a quarterfinal against Colombia, which has another big star in 18-year-old Linda Caicedo. The winner of that game is scheduled to play a semifinal on Wednesday against the winner of the quarterfinal between France and Australia.The final of the tournament is Aug. 20. More

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      England Through to Quarterfinals of World Cup Despite Red Card for Lauren James

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      England is through to the quarterfinals of the World Cup and that will be all that matters for now. Four of its penalty kicks went in and two of Nigeria’s did not, and on a night when not much went according to plan, that was enough. The other questions — important questions — can wait for a day.After a brief gasp when Georgia Stanway opened the penalty kick shootout by missing the first attempt, England’s victory was delivered in short order: Beth England, Rachel Daly, Alex Greenwood and Chloe Kelly hammered home their efforts in quick succession and Nigeria, which missed two of its four, was beaten.The questions, though, will follow Sarina Wiegman’s England into the quarterfinals later this week. Prime among them: What, exactly, was Lauren James thinking?James, 21, had been a revelation for England at her first World Cup, scoring three goals in four games — one against Denmark and then two against China — as her team built momentum and expectations in the group stage.But in the 87th minute against Nigeria, she threw her tournament into jeopardy with a stunning loss of composure: Fouled near the sideline, James responded with a shove to the back of her fallen opponent, Michelle Alozie, and then, inexplicably, a stamp on Alozie’s back as she jogged away.The action was flagged for the Honduran referee, Melissa Borjas, by the video assistant referee. Borjas jogged over to see a replay on the sideline monitor and returned to produce a red card. James was off, and England was down to 10 players just as the game went to extra time.When might she be back? That is unclear. The red card would mean a one-game suspension. But since it was for violent conduct, FIFA will review the incident and could choose to extend her ban.“It was a split second,” Wiegman said of James’s red card. “She’s an inexperienced player on this stage and she’s done really well. And I think in a split second, she just sort of lost her emotions.”On a team already weakened by injuries, the ejection of James could be a game-changer, especially after another valuable midfielder, Keira Walsh, was subbed off after 120 minutes when she appeared to sustain an injury.Her presence on the field at that moment had drawn questions by itself: Walsh had injured a knee early in the group stage, so seriously that it was initially feared she would miss the rest of the tournament. But she only missed one game, against China, and then returned to the starting lineup on Monday.Now she is limping again, and her fitness — just like James’s suspension — will hang over England as it prepares for a quarterfinal against the Colombia-Jamaica winner on Saturday.But that, and the other questions, can wait. For now England is alive, and that is all that matters. More

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      Overlooked No More: Lily Parr, Dominant British Soccer Player

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      She persevered at a time when women were effectively banned from the sport, and was the first woman inducted into England’s National Football Hall of Fame.This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times.In 1921, the Football Association, English soccer’s ruling body, effectively banned women from playing the sport, deeming it “quite unsuitable for females.” But by then, a standout player named Lily Parr had already gained fame for her skill on the field.Her renown was part of the growth of women’s soccer at the time, exemplified by a match in which she played at Goodison Park in Liverpool that drew a crowd of about 53,000, with thousands more outside the stadium. (It would remain the largest crowd for a women’s club soccer match for 99 years, until Atlético Madrid hosted Barcelona in front of 60,739 fans in March 2019.)Though the association’s ban would hamper Parr’s career, barring her and other women from playing in stadiums, she competed where she could, in fields and parks in England and abroad, and continued drawing attention over her 31 years with the same team, Dick, Kerr Ladies Football Club.In 1927, the English newspaper The Leicester Mail called her “a remarkably nimble and speedy performer” with “a kick like a cart-horse.” By the time she retired from soccer, in 1951, she had scored an estimated 1,000 goals.Parr was “a great player in a great team,” said Gail Newsham, author of the 1994 book “In a League of Their Own!: The Dick, Kerr Ladies 1917-1965,” and she contributed to the club’s immense success alongside other star goal scorers like Florrie Redford, Jennie Harris and Alice Kell, the team’s longest serving captain.Soccer officials began lifting the ban in England — as well as those in other countries — in the 1970s. The first official Women’s World Cup was held in 1991, and interest in the event has grown considerably since then.This year, the Women’s World Cup, which is currently underway in Australia and New Zealand, includes an expanded field of 32 teams, up from 24.Club competition in England has grown, too; the Women’s Super League, which began in 2011, became fully professional in 2018. In the United States, the National Women’s Soccer League began in 2013.In 2002, Parr became the first woman inducted into England’s National Football Museum Hall of Fame, now in Manchester, and in 2019, the museum installed a life-size statue of her there, also a first for a British female soccer player.“We have come a long way since Lily Parr’s days, and she deserves recognition as a true pioneer of the sport,” Marzena Bogdanowicz, a spokeswoman for women’s soccer at the Football Association, was quoted as saying in The Guardian in 2019.Parr, with dark hair, leaps while training with her team. She drew attention as “a remarkably nimble and speedy performer” with “a kick like a cart-horse,” as one newspaper wrote.GettyLilian Parr was born on April 26, 1905, in St Helens, about 10 miles northeast of Liverpool, to Sarah and George Parr, a glassworks laborer. Growing up, she played soccer in the street with her brothers.Women had been playing soccer in Britain since the late 19th century, but World War I offered an opportunity for them to blossom. As men were sent to fight and women filled the country’s factories, the government encouraged soccer as an after-work activity.Parr went to work for Dick, Kerr & Co., a locomotives factory that had switched production to munitions during the war, and joined the company’s team as a left back when she was about 15.Her manner could be rough and abrupt, but with a quick wit and a dry sense of humor she enjoyed strong friendships with many of her teammates, Newsham wrote.In one perhaps apocryphal story, the team was playing at Ashton Park in Preston, England, northwest of Manchester, when a male professional goalkeeper declared that a woman would never be able to score on a man. Parr, famous for her powerful left foot, accepted his challenge. She lined up to take a penalty kick against him and broke the man’s arm with her shot.Parr and her team in 1939 discussing tactics for a forthcoming match.GettyParr, who later moved to left winger, exploded onto the scene in 1921.On Feb. 5 that year, she scored a hat trick — three goals in a single match — at Nelson, England; she scored another three days later at Stalybridge in a 10-0 win. In a 9-1 win in Liverpool at Anfield Stadium the next week, she netted five goals against a team of all-stars assembled by the comedian Harry Weldon. That May she scored every goal in a 5-1 win over a visiting French team.Parr’s shooting and crossing abilities, as well as her impressive physique (she was a sturdy 5 feet 10 inches tall or so), quickly made her a star, and she finished 1921 with 108 goals, according to Newsham.That year the team won all 67 games it played and scored some 448 goals in the process while allowing just 22. Other players, including Redford and Harris, contributed to the team’s dominance. In one April 1921 match at Barrow, for example, the team won 14-2 with seven goals from Redford, four from Harris and three from Parr. Redford led the year’s scoring with a 170 goals.On Dec. 5, 1921, the Football Association unanimously passed its resolution declaring that soccer “ought not to be encouraged” among women. It mandated that all of the association’s clubs “refuse the use of their grounds for such matches.” Because association clubs owned virtually all stadiums, women’s soccer on any significant scale was, in effect, banned.Similar bans were common across the world for much of the 20th century. The momentum that had been building since World War I screeched to a halt, and the sport, for women, withered on the vine.Parr’s team nevertheless continued to play in front of smaller crowds and on tours abroad. In 1922, she captained a trip to the United States. That October, the team tied a men’s team, 4-4, in Washington, D.C. Some sources suggest that President Warren G. Harding kicked off the game and autographed the match ball.As she continued playing, Parr trained to be a nurse and worked at what was then known as Whittingham Hospital, a psychiatric facility northeast of Preston. Some have viewed Parr as a queer icon, but there is no evidence that she was gay. “Like all our great football stars there are as many myths as there are facts, and we all embroider her story with our own influences,” said Jean Williams, a professor of sports history at the University of Wolverhampton. “That is why she means so much to so many.”Parr’s career lasted into her 40s; she played her last game in 1951. In 1965, she retired from nursing. A few years later, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. She lived to see the ban on women’s soccer lifted in 1971, but died of cancer on May 24, 1978, at her home in Preston. She was 73.Only in recent decades has recognition of Parr and her club’s accomplishments gained momentum. Historical markers for her team are now at the Preston factory site, Preston North End’s stadium and Ashton Park. The English National Football Museum installed a permanent display about her life in 2021.“Lily is a lens through which to look at the women’s game in the ’20s,” Belinda Scarlett, then the curator of women’s football at the museum, told The Guardian in 2020. “It will tell the stories of all the women she played with and against.”She added that “women’s football probably wouldn’t have continued if those groups of women didn’t fight that ban and just play wherever the hell they could find a space to play football.” More