As befits an adopted Catalan, Toni Duggan knows that beating Spain is one thing but outpassing them something else entirely. Not that the Barcelona forward is remotely daunted by the prospect of facing Iberian opposition in an England shirt at Swindon on Tuesday night. Duggan has always been one of life’s optimists but she genuinely believes her international teammates can monopolise the ball in an important warm-up for this summer’s World Cup in France.
That would mark quite a departure from two years ago, when England beat Spain 2-0 during Euro 2017 in the Netherlands yet ceded the majority of possession to their opponents. Staged amid torrential rain in Breda, that group game saw Spain dominate to an almost embarrassing extent on an evening when counterattacking goals from Fran Kirby and Jodie Taylor prefaced England’s victory.
Since then Phil Neville has replaced Mark Sampson and the rapid development of a recently professional domestic league has enabled the manager to replace his predecessor’s necessary pragmatism with a more expansive philosophy. This more fluently swashbuckling approach came unstuck at Manchester City’s Academy Stadium on Friday when Canada’s pressing game stifled England’s creativity and Neville’s side lost 1-0.
Duggan believes atonement can come at Swindon, where England will benefit from her inside information. “I think it’s going to be a very good game this time round because we’re playing a different style now,” she says. “Hopefully we can impose our style and have a bit more possession than last time.
“Spain are wonderful in possession and very, very good in attack but we’ve come a long way from the first camp with Phil in terms of how we attack and how we keep the ball under pressure.”
With “seven, eight or nine” of her Barcelona colleagues likely to be in the visiting squad, Duggan has been going through their strengths and weaknesses with Neville and his staff. “There’ll be times when we don’t have the ball,” she says, before a nod to the opposition in this summer’s World Cup group. “That’s football and it’ll happen against Scotland, Argentina and Japan. There’s going to be times when we don’t have the ball but we’re very disciplined and we’ve built our foundations on defending. It’s something we’re very good at.
“I’m always bragging with my Spanish teammates at Barcelona, saying I’ll take the 30% possession and two goals we scored in the Euros; a win’s a win. They just laugh and say: ‘We had all the ball.’”
Arguably England’s greatest strength is an ability to mix things up on the pitch, to mesh differing styles while showing off the sort of flexibility instilled by the tactically astute Sampson. “I think that ability is why we’ve been so successful,” Duggan adds. “We can adapt our style to win games. It’s in our nature to have that direct threat at times but now we’re a lot more technical, a lot more comfortable on the ball. We’ve got a bit of everything now.
“But if you look at the girls on our teams, a lot of them, like the Manchester City girls and the Chelsea girls, play possession-based games so it’s only right we do it as a national team as well. Right the way through the England setup that’s the style they’re looking for going forward. The junior teams all play possession-based; maybe times are changing for English football.”
Consequently she hopes to see Spain struggling to regain possession at Swindon, where England will be without Steph Houghton, who has been withdrawn to manage a groin complaint in the buildup to the World Cup. “I’ve been bigging this game up like it’s a World Cup final,” Duggan says. “It should be great for the fans.”
A crowd of around 15,000 is expected but the Football Association and Premier League clubs are currently discussing staging women’s fixtures at bigger stadiums next season. Last month a crowd of 60,739 gathered at the Wanda Metropolitano for a match between Atlético Madrid and Barcelona, a record for a women’s club match. Similarly in Italy, 39,000 fans turned up at the Allianz Stadium where Juventus Women met Fiorentina.
“It’s what I always believed would happen,” says Duggan, who remains unperturbed that only 5,682 turned up at the 7,000-capacity Academy Stadium last Friday. “It’s happening a lot more now in Spain. I’ve been there two years and to see the strides that have been made already is amazing. Hopefully it’ll be England next and the same will happen at a league game here.”
