Women’s World Cup LIVE: Latest news as Wiegman back England to end 57 years of hurt

When it gets to this stage before a big game, even someone as experienced as Sarina Wiegman finds she can’t take her mind off it. Or, rather, she doesn’t want to take her mind off it, which is precisely why she’s so experienced.

“No, and I don’t want to relax,” she smiles.

“It’s Spain,” Wiegman says of her thoughts before taking on Sunday’s opponents. “Everything now is Spain. When you’re so close, well, I have that feeling a little bit anyway, but when you go to the next game, you’re only thinking ‘OK, what’s next? What can we get in front of us? What challenges can we expect? How are we going to prepare the team?

“I just want to get ready.”

Wiegman has ensured England have never been more ready. The national team are on the brink of bringing a decade-long project to glorious completion and winning a first ever Women’s World Cup because of her crucial influence. The 53-year-old from The Hague can now be classed as the best manager in the game. While the key elements of that story are tactics, patience, strategy and the will – as well as investment from the FA – to hire a manager this good, there is also something acutely personal.

Read Miguel Delaney’s in-depth piece on the Lionesses’s iconic manager

Lauren James could return to play in the World Cup final after her England teammates earned their spot in Sunday’s Sydney showpiece with a 3-1 win over hosts Australia.

James was handed a two-game ban by Fifa after being sent off during the last-16 win over Nigeria for a stamp on defender Michelle Alozie during the knockout game, which England won via a penalty shootout.

The Chelsea star sat out both England’s 2-1 win over Colombia in the quarter-finals and the semi-final victory over Australia, where Ella Toone’s first-half piledriver, Lauren Hemp’s second-half finish and Alessia Russo’s late strike knocked out the hosts to set up a final with Spain.

Lauren Hemp didn’t need to look; she already had the picture in her head. After 86 minutes of being everywhere for England, Hemp found another burst to turn away from Katrina Gorry and ease into the space, gliding to the left to create room on the right. As Australia backed off, Hemp opened up the angle and reversed the ball back to Alessia Russo – her target all along. Then came the finish, low, controlled, a clinical way to round off a ruthless performance on a gutsy night. Cool, calm and collected, it booked England’s place in the World Cup final and summed up how they beat Australia.

“Incredible finish, incredible pass,” Sarina Wiegman said. For the second match in a row, her front two were both on the scoresheet, Hemp and Russo on target in the semi-finals, just as they were in the quarter-finals, just as Wiegman had planned. Except, of course, that no one would have planned for this, in a tournament where rarely anything has gone to script for England and they have been forced to adapt. The Lionesses came into the World Cup with seven forwards and they will likely start Sunday’s final with only two in attacking positions; Hemp and Russo stand as their unlikely combination.

It is a disappointment that women’s football has come of age in very slightly more enlightened times.

For most people, what will happen on Sunday in Sydney is just a sporting contest, a shot at immortality. It’s noble enough. Admirable even. But it is nevertheless a statement of fact that had this been going on, say, 20 years ago, it would have been a fine opportunity to analyse the degree to which the proud nations of England and Spain absolutely hate one another.

It is only really the luck of the footballing draw that means your average Englishman has spent the last half-century or so getting angry about the Battle of Trafalgar, the Second World War and the Falklands, while scarcely troubling at all the rich seam of historical grievance with the Spanish. And it seems a shame that this is unlikely to change.

There has, in relatively modern times, only been one opportunity for the tabloid newspapers to evoke the Spanish Armada, and that was 27 years ago during Euro ’96. What a waste. But if you look closely enough, you’ll see that Anglo-Spanish resentment has been simmering nicely for quite some time.

Record attendances, standout goalkeeping performances, and penalty-taking fire-power to eclipse any strike by a man in last season’s Premier League.

Not bad for a bunch of girls, is it?

The 2023 Women’s World Cup has certainly been pulling in the fans. One of the home teams, Australia, has twice played in front of crowds exceeding 75,000 in Sydney, and that was only limited by the capacity of the stadium.

Well over 500,000 have attended fan zones in host cities to watch the games on big screens, and, after only two rounds of the tournament, attendance numbers had already exceeded the total attendance of the 2015 World Cup in Canada.

The football world governing body, FIFA, has been trying to grow women’s football at pace, and it seems to be working.

Gemma Abbott on the importance of this World Cup:

Sir Keir Starmer has called for a celebratory bank holiday should England win Sunday’s Women’s World Cup final. The Labour leader said he was “never complacent” as he backed the suggestion in the event of the Lionesses beating Spain.

The Government has said an extra bank holiday is not currently in its plans, adding it will find the “right way to celebrate” if England win.

England will go in search of a first Women’s World Cup crown when they take on Spain in the final in Sydney.

While the fixture will obviously be held on a neutral ground, Spain are Team A for the final and thus have kit precedence.

That means that Jorge Vilda’s team will play in their red home strip, with dark blue shorts and socks.

While England might be expected to then wear their traditional white shirts, the Lionesses’ home kit now includes blue shorts after lobbying from players over concerns about wearing white during their periods.

The matching shorts necessitates a change: England will wear their light blue away kit for the final, with white socks.

Lauren James will be ready to play for England in Sunday’s World Cup final if she is selected by Sarina Wiegman, according to her club manager Emma Hayes.

James is available to face Spain in England’s first ever Women’s World Cup final after serving a two-match ban for stamping on Nigeria’s Michelle Alozie in the last-16.

The Lionesses defeated Colombia and Australia in their last two matches without James, who was England’s breakout star in the group stages.

Chelsea boss Hayes says she has spoken to the 21-year-old forward throughout the tournament and backed James to be in the frame for selection.

The Football Association will resist any USA approach for Sarina Wiegman, chief executive Mark Bullingham has said.

Wiegman is now one game away from a history double, as she took a senior English national team to a World Cup final for the first time. That has naturally attracted interest from the USA, whose coach Vlatko Andonovski resigned after a huge underperformance that saw the deposed world champions eliminated in the last 16.

Bullingham said the FA would “100 per cent” reject any approach.

“It is not about money. We are very, very happy with her and we feel she is happy. I think that is the answer.

“We’ve seen lots of rumours and, look, she is a special talent. We’ve got a bit of time because obviously she’s contracted to 2025, and she’ll obviously want to have a decent holiday after this. But all I’ll say is we’re massive fans of her. We believe she’s happy, and we’d love to continue working with her for a long time.”

Fifa president Gianni Infantino said it is women who “have the power to change” football and achieve equality in the game.

It has already been a record-breaking Women’s World Cup, with the tournament in Australia and New Zealand setting its highest-ever attendance figures of over two million people as well as drawing booming TV audiences around the globe. The Fifa president also said the World Cup has generated over $570m (£447m) in revenues and has “broke even” financially ahead of Sunday’s final between England and Spain.

There remains a huge discrepancy in prize money between the men’s and women’s World Cups, however. Despite a 10-fold increase from the last Women’s World Cup in 2019, the record prize money of $152m (£126m) announced by Fifa before the tournament remains some way short of the reported $440m (£365m) prize money on offer to teams at last year’s men’s finals in Qatar.

While Infantino said Fifa remains on track to achieve equal pay between the men’s and women’s World Cup at the 2026 and 2027 tournaments, the Fifa president urged media and sponsors to step to help bridge the gap and said women “have the power to convince men” that equity in football can be reached.