Ngland’s attackers were rightly praised after beating Norway, but that combination of Keira Walsh and Georgia Stanway really excelled in this tournament.
Sarina Wiegman has always liked options and finally made the call to start Leah Williamson back in defense for the match in Austria, which surprised me a bit. Don’t get me wrong, she’s great there for Arsenal, but she’s played a lot in midfield for England besides Keira too.
In the end, it turned out to be a bit of a masterstroke and Keira seems to be doing well. She and Leah may have looked a bit alike, occupying the same spaces, but now Keira is in charge and she can really run things.
At the same time, she still knows she has Leah behind her. That partnership hasn’t gone away, it’s just changed a bit as Leah’s partnership with Millie Bright as a central defender blossoms. Sometimes having your leader in the backline gives a team a sense of calm and strength down the spine and Leah has been able to provide that from defense.
With solid fullbacks in Lucy Bronze and Rachel Daly, and Keira taking that defensive responsibility in midfield, Georgia has had the freedom to bomb forward and create chances.
Georgia was one of the “ones to watch” at the last World Cup, when she was only 20. I remember being so impressed with her, and since then she has become a key player at Manchester City, which saw her make a big summer move to Bayern Munich. . She is really growing in stature, epitomized by the fact that she took that crucial penalty against Norway.
That was a big decision – you could have let Ellen White or Beth Mead stand up, but Georgia took the spot kick and even within the game you could see her confidence growing.
The big test for Keira and Georgia going deeper into the competition is how vulnerable they can be in the transition. If Georgia always continues to find space they could get caught and that will be interesting to see against the harder sides.
So far they have managed to keep that playing area under control. Therefore I think it is probably good that England have avoided Germany and it looks like they will meet Spain in the quarter finals.
Spain play great football, but it’s more possession, they like to be in control and they give you time to get into shape and then try to tear you down. They don’t seem to kill you in those transitions like Germany does, and they’ve shown defensive vulnerabilities.
Of course, Spain still has to finish second in Group B, but I’m looking forward to getting the job done against Denmark on Saturday night.
On Sunday it’s Group C, where I really enjoyed Portugal’s two matches. They were a lot of fun, but you can imagine that both the Netherlands and Sweden take the lead and qualify. Whoever finishes on top between the two will be very important, however, as it means avoiding a clash with France, which, along with England and Germany, appeared to be the strongest team at the tournament.