Having dug deep for their quarter-final victory, the Lionesses are better equipped to win the tournament
England winning all three group games with an aggregate score of 14-0 might have given the impression that tournament football is straightforward, but the quarter-final victory over Spain showed it is far from that. England had to work extremely hard to stay in the game and needed to change tactics to get the better of their opponents, which will be beneficial going into the semis and, hopefully, final.
There is no doubt Spain are the best team England have played and offered a very different challenge from those in the victories over Austria, Norway and Northern Ireland. England needed to put into practice a different gameplan to deal with life without the ball. I thought at times they might be playing within themselves and that doubt was creeping in, but they just grew stronger and stronger as a group as the game went on.
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