Lucy Bronze defends England’s penalty taking
England full-back Lucy Bronze has defended her team’s penalty taking after they once again had a spot-kick saved, this time in their Women’s World Cup semi-final loss to the United States.
Tuesday’s dramatic contest against the defending champions — which attracted an average 220,000 viewers on RTÉ2, and 11.7m on BBC1 — saw Christen Press put the United States in front with a 10th-minute header. Ellen White drew things level nine minutes later before Alex Morgan headed home what proved the winner just after the half-hour mark.
White had a goal disallowed by a marginal offside call following a VAR check, but England were then awarded an 84th-minute penalty via VAR, only for Alyssa Naeher to save from Steph Houghton, shortly before Millie Bright was sent off following a challenge on Morgan.
It was the third time at the tournament that England had failed to convert from the spot, with Nikita Parris, who scored a penalty in the opener against Scotland, being denied by Argentina’s Vanina Correa and Norway’s Ingrid Hjelmseth.
When it was put to Bronze that the penalty-taking had not been good enough, she said: “I completely disagree, to be honest.
I think Nikita Parris has done some superb penalties and keepers have made some fantastic saves. I think we’re too harsh on the penalty takers sometimes.
“It’s a lot of pressure on a goalkeeper, to pull out a save in the semi-final of a World Cup, to keep their team on top? That’s unbelievable. The Argentina keeper? Absolutely unbelievable save. The same for Norway, the keeper’s made a fantastic save.
“I think it’s a ridiculous comment to say the penalties aren’t good enough, we’ve scored penalties this tournament and we’ve scored them in the past, so I don’t think that’s an issue at all.”
While Houghton said after the match she was “gutted” and felt she had “let the team down”, England boss Phil Neville said “no blame should be attached” to the centre-back.
That was echoed by Bronze, who said: “She’s our captain and it’s not easy to step up in a World Cup semi-final to try to score a penalty. It’s a huge amount of pressure to take and just because she’s not scored a penalty the blame is not on her, we’re a team and we win and lose together.”
Morgan’s celebration after her goal saw her pretending to sip a cup of tea, which provoked some England fans.
Asked about that, the US forward said: “I wanted to keep it interesting. I know (team-mate) Megan Rapinoe has the best celebration, so I had to try and step up this game. And I feel like this team has had so much thrown at them, at us. And I feel like we didn’t take the easy route to the final this tournament. And ‘that’s the tea’.”
