Mark Sampson Rewarded for Tactical Choices as England Make World Cup History

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: June 23, 2015

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Despite the soaring temperature in Ottawa on Monday evening, England kept a cool head to come from a goal down against Norway to reach the quarter-finals of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup with a 2-1 victory.

On the face of it, it was a match that England were always favourites to win. Norway are ranked 11th in the world compared to England up in sixth, but the finalists of the 2013 European Championships were never going to be an easy challenge to overcome, especially with history going against the Lionesses.

In three previous tournaments, England were eliminated at the first knockout stage. They had also never beaten a European team at any World Cup. To reach the quarter-finals, they would have to do both.

The opening 45 minutes were not a pretty watch. Similar to the opening game against France, Mark Sampson set up his team to play 4-1-4-1—leaving Manchester City’s Toni Duggan to run the channels on her own, looking to force Norway’s defence into a mistake and give her teammates an outlet to help get out of their own half.

England’s passing was poor. Their play was too rushed, there needed to be a little more patience on the ball instead of instantly looking to find a killer pass. It led to England giving the ball away cheaply and inviting waves of Norwegian pressure.



One change that Sampson made from the 2-1 win over Colombia was the return of Lucy Bronze to right-back. This was evidently to combat the power and pace of Norway’s 19-year-old striker, Ada Hegerberg, and it worked to perfection. Able to match her speed and physical strength, Bronze kept the forward quiet for most of the game.

Whenever Hegerberg did get the better of the Manchester City defender, Bronze was able to recover and get back into position.

For all of Norway’s possession, they were not able to make it count in the first half and England were fairly comf...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - International Football

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