England’s Jill Scott has admitted the team were left heartbroken by their cruel World Cup semi-final defeat to Japan, but believes the experience can be a springboard for the future.
The Manchester City midfielder also said the team were united around Laura Bassett, whose own goal in stoppage time handed victory to their opponents.
“It is difficult to take, and so heartbreaking for us to go out like that in the last minute after putting in such a great performance where we had really run ourselves into the ground,” said Scott.
“Football can be cruel sometimes. We came into the tournament saying that we wanted to do something that we have never achieved before and when we reflect on what we have done here we can be very proud of reaching the semi-final for the first time.
“Hopefully it will act as a springboard for this team and next time we can go that one step further. We hit the bar and I went close myself but the margins between winning and losing are so fine. We are so disappointed but we came into the tournament as a very tight group and we will leave even tighter.”
Scott said the Japan team had been sympathetic towards them, adding: “We have a lot of respect for the Japanese team, they are lovely people.
“Their coach came into the tournament saying that they were technically better than us and, to be fair, we agreed with that – but what we needed to do was try and stifle their play because we know they are like the Barcelona of the women’s game. And we did that well. We created chances, were very physical and when you look back at the game I don’t think we deserved to go out in the 90 minutes.”
Reflecting on the own goal, Scott said: “We win as a team and lose as a team. It was very unfortunate circumstances for us, but Laura had to go for the ball because there was a Japanese player right behind her. I am sure Laura is devastated but if something happens to one of us, it happens to all of us.”
