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      England Victory Sets Up Showdown With France

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      AL KHOR, Qatar — England was floundering, looking nervous and giving up territory and opportunities to Senegal midway through the first half in Al Bayt Stadium. But then the youngest member of its squad made his presence count.Playing with a freedom and confidence that seemed to have deserted his more experienced teammates, Jude Bellingham, 19, produced crucial contributions to two first-half goals that sent England on its way to a 3-0 victory over Senegal. The win set up a quarterfinal match with France and a meeting with Kylian Mbappé, who was the breakout teenage star of the last World Cup.Mbappé became a household name when at 19 he exploded onto the global stage at the World Cup in Russia, becoming the first teenager to score in a World Cup final since Pelé in 1958. Bellingham, a midfielder, is also using the sport’s biggest platform to make his mark.“Jude is a fantastic player — he does everything well,” England’s captain, Harry Kane, said of Bellingham’s performance, during a postgame news conference. “I like Jude a lot, a good person, mature for his age and great leadership skills. All I would say is keep working and keep learning.”England had been at risk of falling behind Senegal, the African champion, when Bellingham made the first of what have now become his customary surges up the field. Seeing an opportunity to transition after Senegal lost the ball, Bellingham sprinted into space down the left side, received the ball from Kane and showed calmness to find Jordan Henderson in the center of the area. Henderson, the Liverpool captain and a most unlikely goal scorer here — having scored only twice before in a 12-year career with England’s national team — finished easily before asking the crowd to acclaim the contribution of Bellingham by pointing to the young midfielder as he wheeled away in celebration.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      England Gets a Look at Itself, and Isn’t Sure It Likes What It Sees

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      Coach Gareth Southgate was unruffled by a scoreless draw against the United States. But it revealed concerns lurking just below the surface.AL KHOR, Qatar — For four fleeting, glorious days, all was right and all was well in England’s world. Gareth Southgate’s team had cut Iran to ribbons in its first game at the World Cup, a glistening generation of talent dancing and weaving and sparkling on the grandest stage of them all.He should have known it would not last. That was Monday. By Friday, England was being loudly and roundly — and just a little unfairly — booed from the field by its own fans, the players and particularly the coach informed in no uncertain terms that the fans had not traveled all this way to watch their team be held to a scoreless draw by the United States. There are some indignities, after all, that a Bud Zero cannot heal.On an entirely practical level, the significance of the result is minimal for England — nothing more than a bad day at the office, the sort of thing that can be swiftly shaken off and may, in a few weeks’ time, be relegated to a mere footnote.Should England beat Wales in its final group game on Tuesday, it will qualify for the tournament’s next stage at the top of its group, earning (in theory) a kinder draw in the first knockout round. Even a tie against Wales would, at the very least, be enough to ensure progress. It will be an irritation that Southgate cannot rest players for that game, that he cannot manage minutes and reduce burden, but he is hardly short on options. It is nothing terminal.Emotionally, though, in terms of all those airy intangibles that coalesce during a tournament into something real and physical, it is different. England came into the World Cup on the back of a dispiriting year. Southgate’s popularity, once sufficiently high to give the waistcoat an unexpected and thankfully brief comeback, had plummeted.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      in Tennis

      Tending to Grass, and to Grief, on a Tennis Court in Iowa

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      Mark Kuhn is hunched over, one knee on the ground, pulling dandelions from an otherwise immaculate lawn. With a small, serrated blade, he carefully carves tiny leaves from the turf, extracting as much of their roots as he can reach, and places them in a plastic container beside him. Dandelions, I learn, are as prolific as they are stubborn.Three days earlier and some 4,000 miles away in my native England, Novak Djokovic had once again held the Wimbledon trophy aloft on the most revered court in all of tennis. Meanwhile, I was driving the 1,926 miles from my adopted home of Oakland, Calif., to be here, on this tennis court, on a farm in Northern Iowa, standing next to Mark and his weed-filled ice cream tub.I kick off my shoes and stand barefoot like a child, taking in the Midwestern summer. The grass on the soles of my feet is warm and welcoming, and the morning sun undulates on the corrugated metal of the Kuhn family’s sheds and silos. I feel like I’ve been here before.Mr. Kuhn on his court. The idea to build it first occurred to him in 1962.My memories of early childhood are mostly vague: a muted palette of inconsistency and confusion, lacking defined edges or chronology. But recollections of summers, which were spent in rural Cambridgeshire with my grandparents, are bathed in the palomino gold of the August sun on fields as far as the eye could see, and in the warmth of the love I felt there. Every afternoon, a curtain of decapitated dandelion-seed fluff, churned up by nearby combine harvesters, would fill the lattice patio window, on its way to offering seemingly infinite new beginnings.It was here I discovered tennis — albeit watching, not playing. I was a resolutely unathletic child, one of my more enduring traits. In 1997, most British households had only five television channels, two of which ran wall-to-wall Wimbledon coverage for two full weeks, every year. I would normally have been at school in late June, but it was clear to one of my more perceptive teachers — who knew that I’d struggled in recent years with my grandfather’s sudden death, and with my father’s decision to leave to start a new family — that I was deeply unhappy at home and would be better off beginning my summer break early.From the comfort and loving safety of Nan’s sofa, I quickly became invested in the progress of Tim Henman, who made it to the quarterfinals. At first, it was because there was simply nothing else on TV, and the whiff of British success at Wimbledon tends to send my country into an inexplicably contagious fever. Ultimately though, it was Henman’s dogged determination that kept me hooked. An unlikely hero, his resolve was an unexpected ember of inspiration for a lost kid who was desperately grasping for something solid to hang on to.Two tennis professionals, Kiranpal Pannu and Nathan Healey, during a practice session.A group of ball girls lines up in a shed beside the court.A breeze flutters through the six-feet-tall cornstalks. Mark tells me the corn grows so quickly this time of year that you can actually hear it. I’m not sure if he’s serious, but I furtively prick an ear, just in case. The lament of a mourning dove is accompanied by the shrill urgency of a red-winged blackbird flitting between field and power line. At ground level I hear the occasional crunch of tires on the loose gravel road beyond the farm’s perimeter. Necks craned, passers-by peer for a better view of the All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club, as spectacular as it is incongruous, and a plume of dust forms in their curious wake.Exactly 20 years ago, Mark, together with his wife Denise and their two sons, Mason and Alex, began the laborious and experimental undertaking of building a grass tennis court on their farm on the outskirts of Charles City, Iowa. It took more than a year to finish.It was the realization of a dream the reluctant third-generation farmer had held since 1962, having become enamored of Wimbledon two years previously when he heard a BBC broadcast on his grandfather’s shortwave radio. Twelve years old and absent-mindedly doing his chores, Mark noticed the cattle feedlot he was standing in was about the size of a regulation tennis court. But it wasn’t until the sudden death of a close friend, some 40 years later, that he was galvanized to try to make his far-fetched daydream a reality.Mark plays on the court occasionally, but his main source of joy lies in the rituals of preparing it for others to enjoy. The All Iowa Lawn Tennis Club — a nod to Wimbledon’s home at the All England Lawn Tennis Club — is open to whoever wants to drop Mark a line to request a reservation.Mr. Kuhn operates his greens mower.With string guiding the way, the lines on the court are painted with a titanium dioxide compound.Mr. Kuhn measures the height of the net.The week following the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, Mark is preparing to host Madison Keys, a one-time U.S. Open finalist, for an exhibition tournament benefiting her Kindness Wins Foundation.Just after sunrise, using a greens mower, Mark meticulously crops one millimeter off the top of the grass in four directions, giving the surface its distinctive stripes. Then it’s time for his favorite task: marking up the court. After aligning the edges with string, he slowly paints the tramlines — one careful step at a time, heel to toe — with a brilliant white titanium dioxide compound. The net is then dropped and pulled drum-tight, until it measures exactly three feet in the middle.Tips for Parents to Help Their Struggling TeensCard 1 of 6Tips for Parents to Help Their Struggling TeensAre you concerned for your teen? More

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      England Exults After Women’s Euros Soccer Win

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      The dramatic 2-1 victory over Germany in the European Championship final touched off celebrations that have been more than 50 years in the waiting.LONDON — For over 50 years, English soccer fans have hoped, prayed and sung that a major trophy would “come home.” Now it finally has. And they can hardly contain themselves.Thousands of supporters screamed and chanted on Sunday at Trafalgar Square in central London and at other viewing parties around the country, where the final of the women’s European Championship was displayed on big screens.On Monday, pictures of the Lionesses, as the team is known, dominated the front pages of British newspapers after their 2-1 win over Germany at Wembley Stadium in London, the headlines lauding them as “game changers” or “history makers” and declaring “No more years of hurt.”Politicians and royals sent messages and congratulations to the team on its victory — a dramatic conclusion with parallels to England’s last major championship, in 1966, when the country hosted the men’s World Cup and its team defeated Germany in the final.But the success held the potential to go beyond national pride and euphoria, with women’s soccer occupying the public consciousness in Britain like never before.“I think we really made a change,” said the team’s Dutch coach, Sarina Wiegman, at a news conference after the match. The team had done a lot for the sport but for the role of women in society, too, she added, a sentiment that was echoed by others.“It’s been an amazing month and an amazing day yesterday,” said Mark Bullingham, the chief executive of the Football Association, England’s governing body for soccer.“I think it will really turbocharge everything we have been doing in the women’s game,” he said in an interview on “BBC Breakfast” on Monday, adding that the organization had invested heavily in women’s soccer over the past few years.“There is no reason we shouldn’t have the same number of girls playing as boys and we think it will create a whole new generation of heroes who girls aspire to be like,” he said.There’s certainly room for improvement. A report published in March by “Fair Game,” a collective of 34 English soccer clubs, found that a gaping gender divide in soccer clubs throughout England and Wales kept the sport “living in the Dark Ages.”Only 11.1 percent of board members at Premier League clubs are women, and two-thirds of the league’s teams have all-male boards, the report said. Significantly fewer women were attending games in England compared with other countries.“This is at a time when public attitudes toward sexism and misogyny are changing, and football needs to change too,” said Stacey Pope, an author of the report.That change felt possible as the Lionesses emerged victorious on Sunday from a match that was attended by a record number of fans — the crowd of more than 87,000 was the biggest for any European Championship final, men or women.Queen Elizabeth sent a message of congratulations to the team, writing that while the athletes’ performances deserved praise, “your success goes far beyond the trophy you have so deservedly earned.”“You have all set an example that will be an inspiration for girls and women today, and for future generations,” she wrote.Kevin Windsor, a graphic designer in London, watched the match with his 3-year-old daughter, who was wearing a princess gown. “My daughter doesn’t have to have an interest in football. She just has to know that it’s an option,” he wrote on Twitter. “That she can become anything she sets her little heart on. From a princess to a lioness. And everything in between.” More

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      England Routs Sweden to Seal Place in Euro 2022 Final

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      Alessia Russo’s backheel highlighted her team’s 4-0 rout of Sweden and sealed England’s place in Sunday’s Euro 2022 final.Follow live updates of the Euro 2022 final.SHEFFIELD, England — The crowd at Bramall Lane required three viewings before it could settle on the appropriate response. The first, in real time, prompted a jubilant, triumphal roar. The second, on the giant screen in a corner of the stadium as England’s players celebrated below, drew a gasp of appreciation.It was only when almost 30,000 people had the chance to watch the close-up replay, though, that they could see what, exactly, had happened. Alessia Russo, the substitute striker, had not only scored for England with a backheel. She had not only scored with a backheel with a defender on her back, or while also nutmegging Hedvig Lindahl, Sweden’s goalkeeper.What she had done, in fact, was all of the above, and she had done it in the semifinals of a major international tournament, and certainly the biggest game of her life so far.RUSSO WITH THE BACKHEEL NUTMEG TO PUT ENGLAND ONE STEP FROM THE FINAL 😳🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 pic.twitter.com/EGz34224Wl— ESPN FC (@ESPNFC) July 26, 2022
      It was only then, armed with a full suite of information, that the crowd could determine the correct reaction. Bramall Lane, in unison, laughed. Not cruelly, not derisively, but in delight and wonder and disbelief.England does not, as a rule, expect to win games of this magnitude. It certainly does not expect to have fun while doing it.Carl Recine/ReutersCarl Recine/ReutersRusso’s backheel caught goalkeeper Hedvig Lindahl by surprise, the ball passing right between her legs. By the time she realized what had happened, Russo and the stadium were celebrating.Molly Darlington/ReutersThat can be attributed to the general undercurrent of fatalism that infuses the country’s sporting psyche at all times, of course, but this team — which humbled Sweden, the world’s second-ranked team, by 4-0 — has its own bespoke ghosts, too. England’s women had, after all, made it to the semifinals of their last three major tournaments. They met Japan in the 2015 World Cup, and lost. They met the Netherlands in the 2017 European Championship, and lost. They met the United States in the 2019 World Cup, and by then a pattern was emerging.By the time Euro 2022 got underway, England’s players were aware that the pressure to end that streak was considerable. The tournament was on their home soil. The Football Association had appointed Sarina Wiegman, the coach of the Dutch team that had broken English hearts in 2017, as manager, at no little expense. The vast majority of the squad was corralled from elite teams competing in England’s booming Women’s Super League.As if that was not exacting enough, England’s imperious sweep through the group phase — scoring five goals against Northern Ireland and a dizzying eight against Norway — served to swell hopes and lift expectations.The players have, in keeping with bizarre tradition, started to receive curious questions at news conferences about whether their success might soothe, in some ill-defined and deeply improbable way, the country’s very real concerns about the price of fuel and the soaring cost of basic amenities and a government in self-inflicted disarray.That confluence of circumstances might have been expected to inhibit England as the prospect of the final, of glory, hovered ever closer on the horizon. Wiegman’s team had struggled in its quarterfinal against a depleted Spain. Sweden threatened to pose a sterner test still. It is not yet a year since the Swedes had competed in the Olympic final. Its team is regarded, by no less an authority than the FIFA rankings, as the finest side in Europe.England’s Ellen White. She and her teammates have outscored their Euros opponents by 20-1.John Sibley/ReutersSweden, the world’s second-ranked team, endured its heaviest defeat ever in a European Championship.Matthew Childs/ReutersAnd for a while it seemed as if this might be another calvary. Sweden carved open a glaring opportunity with its first attack of the game. Inside the first 15 minutes, England had required three fine saves from its goalkeeper, Mary Earps, and the intervention of the crossbar to retain any hope.But while the individual talent at Wiegman’s disposal is, perhaps, only rivaled in this tournament by that of the French, the collective she has crafted is marked by its composure, its serenity, its abiding self-belief. England did not wilt as Sweden battered at its door and pummeled its defenses. It did not allow itself to be overawed, or intimidated, or fretful.Instead, it waited for its opportunity, taking the lead through Beth Mead, the tournament’s leading scorer, a little after half an hour. That might, for a different team, have been the cue to sit back, to hunch its shoulders and grit its teeth. But that is not Wiegman’s way, and so it is not England’s, either.At halftime, the stadium announcer declared that, “as things stand, England is going to the final.” It felt just a little hubristic, the sort of pronouncement that might come to be seen as a source of regret, though not for long. Within four minutes of the start of the second half, Lucy Bronze had doubled the lead, her header drifting achingly slowly past Lindahl’s dive.That goal would, in hindsight, have been enough, but at the time it was not, not enough to be sure. Only with Russo’s improvisational, instinctive brilliance could the crowd — could the players — relax. A few minutes later, Fran Kirby, England’s creative heartbeat, ran through on goal. She, too, was in one of the biggest games of her career. She, too, knew this was serious.But still she chose the indulgent option, lofting a delicate, arcing chip just beyond Lindahl’s grasp, deflecting off her gloves into the net behind her. It was the sort of thing a player tries when they are, despite the situation in which they find themselves, having fun.Sarina Wiegman, who led the Netherlands to the Euros title on home soil in 2017, is one win from doing the same for England.Molly Darlington/ReutersAfter the final whistle, the players lingered on the field. They took the applause from all four corners of the stadium. They listened as all of soccer’s great standards — Dua Lipa and Dana International and the White Stripes — crackled from the speakers.Ellen White, the striker, led the crowd in a chorus of “Sweet Caroline,” her eyes wide and her smile almost baffled. Wiegman, regarded even by her squad as an austere, demanding presence, bounced and jumped and danced with the players. England had been in the semifinals of a major international tournament, and not only had it won, but it had enjoyed itself, and nobody wanted to let that feeling go. More

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      in Tennis

      Kyrgios, Under a Hotter Spotlight, Stays Quiet and Wins Again

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      A day after the emergence of allegations that he assaulted a former girlfriend, Kyrgios found a way to advance to a Wimbledon semifinal but declined to address the accusations afterward.WIMBLEDON, England — The tennis career of Nick Kyrgios has long been an exercise in torture and turmoil, featuring battles with tennis officials, rivals, the news media, alcohol and a psyche that never seems at peace, even when he swears it is. Kyrgios said he contemplated suicide in 2019.Given all that, Wednesday afternoon at the All England Club looked to be filled with land mines in every direction. On the surface, Kyrgios’s only task was to beat Cristian Garin, a steady but middling Chilean player known more for his efforts on clay courts. Simple enough, seemingly, for someone whose innate tennis talents appear to be nearly limitless.Kyrgios, though, has often combusted on the biggest stages. He was playing in a Grand Slam quarterfinal match for the first time since 2015 — he has never made a major semifinal — just 24 hours after a former girlfriend had accused him of assaulting her in Australia last December.For all the troubles Kyrgios, a 27-year-old Australian, has faced on and off the court since he first broke into the top ranks of pro tennis as a teenager, this was something else.“I feel like I’m in ‘The Last Dance,’” Kyrgios, a huge N.B.A. fan who often wears Jordan Brand clothing, said to his physiotherapist Tuesday as he left a practice court, referencing the documentary about the melodrama surrounding the 1997-98 Chicago Bulls.That had been all anyone outside of his tight circle had heard Kyrgios say. He left the rest to his legal team, which said he was taking the allegations seriously but declined to address them in any detail until prosecutors decide to formally pursue a charge.Kyrgios is due in court to face the allegations on Aug. 2, a time when under normal circumstances he might be playing the summer hard court season in North America and preparing for the U.S. Open. After the hearing, law enforcement officials will decide whether to pursue a formal charge of common assault.Kyrgios’s former girlfriend, Chiara Passari, told police Kyrgios grabbed her during a domestic dispute in December.On the advice of his lawyers, Kyrgios declined to comment on the allegations in the news conference after his match Wednesday.“I have a lot of thoughts, a lot of things I want to say, kind of my side about it,” he said. “Obviously I’ve been advised by my lawyers that I’m unable to say anything at this time. I understand everyone wants to kind of ask about it and all that, but I can’t give you too much on that right now.”Pierre Johannessen, a lawyer for Kyrgios, said in a statement Tuesday evening that Kyrgios “is committed to addressing any and all allegations once clear, taking the matter seriously does not warrant any misreading of the process Mr. Kyrgios is required to follow.”Kyrgios declined to say when he had learned about the allegations and the summons, which became public when The Canberra Times in Australia broke the news.Also, he notably did not deliver the sort of strenuous denial that Alexander Zverev, another tennis player who has also faced allegations of assaulting a former girlfriend, has at major tournaments.“I understand you want me to give you the answers,” Kyrgios said when asked if he planned to appear in court or if he knew of the accusations before Wimbledon. “I can’t. I can’t speak anymore on the issue.”Kyrgios spat at a fan in the first round and bickered with his opponent in the third.Sebastien Bozon/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesKyrgios said the 24 hours following the accusations becoming public had been difficult but he did not feel it had affected his play.“Obviously seeing it — I’m only human,” he said. “Obviously I read about it and obviously everyone else was asking questions. It was hard. It was hard to kind of just focus on kind of the mission at hand.”During the past 10 days, Kyrgios had become a fan favorite at Wimbledon, mixing the best of a sublime game packed with power and showboating trick shots with behavior that ran the gamut from boorish and profane to gross.He spat in the direction of a fan during his tense five-set, first-round win. He baited the No. 4 seed, Stefanos Tsitsipas, into losing his cool and the tennis match in their third-round duel, carrying on with the chair umpire until Tsitsipas got so angry hitting Kyrgios with the ball became as important to him as hitting winners.When the matches ended, he took on journalists who questioned his behavior or his violations of Wimbledon’s all-white dress code, and even went after vanquished opponents. After Tsitsipas called him a “bully,” he said the Greek star was “soft” and no one on the tour liked him. Then came the assault allegations.The crowds never left him though, and they were there from before the start of the match until after the end of his win, 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (5), over Garin, a businesslike, almost anticlimactic affair, considering all that was swirling. It earned Kyrgios a semifinal showdown with the 22-time Grand Slam singles champion Rafael Nadal on Friday.“I didn’t see something weird during the match,” Garin said of Kyrgios.This time around, so far at least, the turmoil hasn’t gotten the better of either his brain or his game. If anything, it has quieted the confrontations, and may be bringing out the best of his tennis. Part of what drives him, Kyrgios has said, is to prevail over all the naysayers and critics who view him as the antithesis of the sport’s mythic gentility.Kyrgios’s three-set win Wednesday was as routine as any on the tournament, a stark contrast to the controversy off the court. In the Kyrgios box, his father, girlfriend, agent, and physiotherapist rose after every point. Ever the iconoclast, Kyrgios plays without a coach.Fans welcomed Kyrgios onto the No. 1 Court with a throaty roar. Throughout the match, wails of “Come on, Nick” echoed through the stands. In the few tense moments, the “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie. Oy, Oy, Oy,” cheer sounded, too.Kyrgios will face Rafael Nadal, a 22-time Grand Slam singles tournament champion, in the semifinals. They’ve played nine times, including at Wimbledon in 2014.Alberto Pezzali/Associated PressGarin broke Kyrgios’s serve at love in the opening game and won the first nine points of the match, prompting Kyrgios to shrug his shoulders and start the running dialogue with his box that lasted all afternoon. He quickly settled in though, drawing even by the middle of the set, as he stepped up the velocity on his serve and his powerful forehand, running Garin around the court.With Garin serving to stay in the first set, Kyrgios pressured him into a series of errors, to get to triple set point, and then one more to take the early advantage. The second set brought more of the same. An early break of serve, a bump or two to give Garin a chance to get back even, some back and forth with his posse for support, and then ultimately, an ace to take a commanding lead.He and Garin traded service games for the better part of an hour in the third set, but even though Garin had three chances to break Kyrgios’s serve and force him and his tiring legs to play longer, there was never much of a sense that Garin could win a set, much less three. Every time Kyrgios needed a point, he found a big enough serve, or his hard, flat backhand, or a whippy, nasty forehand to get him over the hump.Late in the tiebreaker, Kyrgios came to the middle of the net, and gave Garin three short chances to put the ball past him. He stabbed the first two back then watched Garin hit the third into the middle of the net. A point later, Garin miss-hit a backhand wide and Kyrgios collapsed to his back, a Grand Slam semifinalist for the first time, amid the eeriest and tensest of environments.Next up is Nadal, and with Kyrgios, who knows what else. More

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      Is Euro 2022 the Payoff for England’s Women’s Soccer Play?

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      At least a half-dozen nations will arrive at this summer’s European Championship thinking they can lift the trophy. But the pressure to win might be the highest on the host nation.BURTON-ON-TRENT, England — It was only 13 years ago, England defender Lucy Bronze figures as she scrolls through her memories, when she needed to pack bags in a supermarket to earn the money she needed for her bus fare to Derby, where she and her Sunderland teammates were to play in the Women’s F.A. Cup Final. It was only a couple of years after that when she was still juggling her nascent career at Everton with a job at Domino’s Pizza.Fast forward to 2022. The rapid rise of women’s soccer in England, and in much of western Europe, is such that Bronze and nearly every other top professional waved goodbye to those kinds of side jobs long ago. Today, Bronze is widely recognized as one of the best women’s players in the world: a three-time Champions League winner, Barcelona’s star summer signing and a key member of an England team that harbors ambitions of winning this month’s European Women’s Championship.“Here we are, in 2022, and players get like helicopters to do appearances,” Bronze, 30, said after an England training session in June. “Do you know what I mean? It’s gone so far, so quickly, and I don’t think anyone could have forecast how huge it was going to be.”England’s Beth Mead and Lauren Hemp during a recent rout of the Netherlands in a friendly.Molly Darlington/Action Images Via ReutersThe do-you-know-what-I-mean moments come quickly in women’s soccer these days. Record-setting attendances. Landmark television agreements. Equal-pay milestones. In 2022, a supermarket chain is far more likely to sponsor an England player than to employ one.That makes the start of this summer’s Women’s Euros, a three-and-a-half-week tournament that opens with the host England’s match against Austria on Wednesday night, another pivotal moment for the game experiencing a surge in both interest and investment.At least a half-dozen nations will arrive in England’s stadiums thinking they can lift the trophy after the final on July 31. But the pressure to do so might be the highest on the host nation, which continues to pump millions of dollars into the sport but has yet to win a major women’s trophy.Old Trafford, the home of Manchester United, will host England’s opening match against Austria on Wednesday. The game is sold out.Carl Recine/Action Images Via ReutersThe stakes for England are high: It will roll into the tournament fresh off lopsided victories over three other tournament participants — Belgium (3-0), the Netherlands (5-1) and Switzerland (4-0) — and eager to build on a semifinal run at the last World Cup, with the next one now just a year away. The Lionesses, as England’s team is known, have not lost a match since Sarina Wiegman took over as their coach in September.That means there is no hiding from the expectations. The faces of England players now adorn billboards in shopping centers and packaging on store shelves. The BBC will air every one of the tournament’s games on its channels or (for a few simultaneous kickoffs) its streaming platform. And England’s three group-stage matches are already sold out.More than 500,000 tickets to the tournament have been sold, guaranteeing the tournament’s attendance will more than double that of its last iteration, in 2017 in the Netherlands. The bulk of those who turn out to cheer England will be expecting the host nation to set a new standard.That could be why Wiegman has made an effort to moderate expectations — “I think there are many favorites for this tournament,” she said recently. “We are one of them.” — even as England’s soccer federation as leaned in on “the pride, the responsibility and the privilege” of the team’s cause.Still, her players know the game’s sudden growth, as well as the chance to play a major tournament on home soil, has placed them in a pivotal moment.“I didn’t really have a female role model growing up in terms of football, so I think it’s massive for that,” England midfielder Keira Walsh, 25, who plays for Manchester City, said of having the Euros on home soil. “But not just for young girls — I think for young boys, they can see the women playing in the big stadiums with sellout crowds at a home tournament. I think it’s only going to grow respect for the game in that way as well.”The tournament comes during an exciting time for women’s soccer in Europe. Its 16-team lineup features some of the world’s most talented squads, including Sweden, currently ranked second in the world; the Netherlands, a World Cup finalist three years ago; Germany, an eight-time European champion; and Spain, which boasts a talented team but, now, not Alexia Putellas, the reigning world player of the year, who tore a knee ligament in training on Tuesday). Norway is bolstered by the return of Ada Hegerberg, and France by the core of that country’s dominant club teams, Olympique Lyonnais and Paris St.-Germain.It is England, though, that may face the highest expectations to deliver.Historic investments by the country’s biggest clubs in the Women’s Super League, England’s top domestic competition, have attracted some of the world’s best players, produced new revenue streams and lifted the standard of play for a new generation of England stars. All but one member of England’s 23-player Euro squad played in the W.S.L. last season, including the veterans Bronze and Ellen White and rising talents such as Walsh and Lauren Hemp.”I don’t think anyone could have forecast how huge it was going to be,” England defender Lucy Bronze said of the growth of the women’s game in Europe.Molly Darlington/Action Images Via Reuters“We’ve seen, over the years, how much the women’s game has grown,” said Hemp, 21, who this year was honored as England’s best young women’s player for a record fourth time. “I think having this home tournament is only going to help it grow even more.”For all the gains, though, players, even the best ones, know there is still a long way to go. The investments in the W.S.L. remain a fraction of the money poured into the men’s game in Europe, and the salaries, television deals and prize money — while significantly improved — still qualify as a rounding error when compared with the men’s paydays.UEFA, the governing body for European soccer, has faced criticism over its choices of stadiums in the group stages, with Iceland’s Sara Björk Gunnarsdottir branding the use of Manchester City’s Academy Stadium, with a tournament capacity of 4,700, as “disrespectful.” And a survey of 2,000 male soccer fans in Britain published earlier this year found that two-thirds had “openly misogynistic attitudes” toward women’s sports, irrespective of age.Still, for veterans like Bronze, the tournament shows how far the women’s game has come and presents an opportunity to raise its profile even more. The new crop of young players she sees at training every day, she said, exhibit a fearlessness that she didn’t have at their age and symbolize a future — for themselves and for England — that could be even brighter.“I look at some of the players now, who maybe haven’t been to a tournament, and I think, ‘Oh, God, when I was you, I was panicking a bit more,’” Bronze said. “But they all seem a little bit more calm.” More