Mark Sampson believes his England team “will be the last one to leave Canada” as the Lionesses prepare to take on Japan in the World Cup semi-final on Wednesday night. A win against the world champions in Edmonton would mean England reaching a World Cup final for the first time since 1966 and the 32-year-old is confident his players can pull off an upset in the semi-final.
“We have huge belief this team will find a way to get themselves through to the final,” said the England head coach.
“There’s huge determination. England will be the last team to leave Canada.” The team have come a long way since Sampson succeeded Hope Powell 18 months ago, when the English women’s game had reached something of a nadir in the wake of a disastrous 2013 European Championships. In Canada, however, they have gone from strength the strength after an opening defeat against France. “We’re two wins away from being world champions and if you’d said that to us 18 months ago, I’m not sure anyone bar myself and some of the staff would have believed it,” Sampson said. “But, as time has passed, the players have grown in belief and now they feel as if something’s really happening, something’s going on, that there’s a higher purpose involved.”
The defender Laura Bassett added: “The last two games [a round of 16 victory against Norway and the quarter-final defeat of Canada] have been massive in the history of English women’s football. Now we want to create more history. We’ve shownin the last two games that we can come up with the goods when we need to. Japan are world champions for a reason but we want to be in that final on Sunday and we’re going to do everything we possibly can to get there.”
