VANCOUVER—What’s a big soccer tournament without a few mind games?
The war of words has been on between Canada and England before they square up in their FIFA Women’s World Cup quarterfinal matchup at BC Place on Saturday.
Before Canada held its pre-game news conference on Friday, England coach Mark Sampson spoke with The Guardian newspaper, outlining his opinion that the host country was the roughest of all teams in this World Cup, and that referees were giving John Herdman’s side more leeway to dole out their abuse.
“Without a shadow of a doubt we’re playing the most aggressive team in this tournament,” Sampson is quoted by The Guardian. “Whether they’re overly aggressive is open to interpretation. We’re all aware of the big refereeing decisions that have gone their way. They’ve been given a very dubious penalty [in the opening game against China] and we can look at the fouls that have been awarded against them.
“We’ve got a qualified referee on our staff and, looking back at the games, he says at least quadruple the number of fouls they’ve actually been penalised for could have been awarded against them. I hope the match referee realises there’s 22 players and two teams on the pitch.”
There’s not much nuance in the approach from Sampson—this is a clear attempt to get the officials for Saturday’s game second-guessing any call in favour of the hosts.
But what was interesting was Herdman’s response to Sampson’s comments. Instead of laughing off the remarks or directly highlighting what his counterpart was trying to do, Herdman largely agreed with the comments, suggesting England would be in for a physical encounter.
“We’re just looking forward to get out there and giving England hell,” Herdman said. “That’s what we’re lining up to do. It’s going to be an aggressive, physical game. There’s one team there that wants to prevent us from getting to the next round, and there’s another team, that’s what they’ve been dreaming of for the last three, four years, and maybe all their life.
“We’ll be going out there as physical as we can and just doing what Canadians do, seeing that Canadian grit…. we’ll be the typical Canadian team we’ve seen over the last few years. We know Canada is known for its grit and its aggressive DNA.”
Herdman also addressed some criticism in the media about his side’s practical if unspectacular approach to the game.
While his team remains undefeated, it has scored just three goals in four matches, and has looked largely predictable in attack, despite its resolute defending and the at times heroic displays of goalkeeper Erin McLeod in net.
“People are going to have an opinion, and they’re entitled to it,” Herdman stated. “People are entitled to them, but I’ll tell you now, the people on the street, the people who turn up into them stadiums, the 55,000—they’re fully behind this team and they have been from the start.”
Saturday’s contest promises to be a tight one. England, No. 6 in the world, plays the same sort of functional, structured game that world No. 8 Canada has adopted under Herdman.
The home side has advanced to this stage with a 1-0 win over the Swiss, while England qualified for the quarterfinals with a 2-1 win over Norway. The two sides know each other well, and have played each other twice this year already, each side claiming a victory off the other.
Defender Rhian Wilkinson, who made her first start of the tournament last match and helped set up the winning goal, suggested those games are largely irrelevant now.
“Personally, the games that we’ve played leading up to the World Cup haven’t meant that much,” Wilkinson said. “When you’re here, as you’ve seen from all the results that have been happening, anything can happen and teams are leaving it all out on the field, and different situations are occurring. This England that we’ll face is not even the England…that we played in May.
“The team will have changed, the things they were hiding potentially that game will potentially come out. It’s a different team. I think we know each other, but at the same time, we’re expecting a lot of new stuff from them, and they should expect the same from us.”
The winner of this encounter will meet the side that emerges victorious in the Saturday’s earlier quarterfinal between Japan and Australia in Edmonton.