Welcome to The Women’s Game, our new email newsletter, designed to deliver a concise, intelligent framing of every day of football during the World Cup so you can maximize your viewing pleasure.
GOOD NEWS: The Women’s Game doesn’t stop now that the World Cup is over. It’s sticking around on a weekly basis. If you like what you read below, our only request is you forward it to a football-loving (or football-curious) friend.
It’s Monday, August 21st. Give us four minutes, we give you everything World Cup.
With the fleeting speed of life’s most precious moments, the 2023 World Cup has reached its final, dramatic, historic end. The entirety of the women’s football world turned on its head in the space of a month. Spain are champions of the world. A fiercely competitive global landscape played out before our riveted eyes. We’ll recall this moment for all time.
Reader, we’ve lived eight lifetimes together. We’ve stayed awake through the night, set alarms to 5 in the morning, tuned in to 2 AM Twitch streams featuring Rog and Sam “Cereal Mommy” Mewis as they called and commented on the games. One day, as we look back on this American summer (and Australian/Kiwi winter), we’ll recall not simply the Hinata Miyazawa golden boot for Japan, the Olga Carmona goal that settled the crown for Spain, or the inordinate upsets and the expansive intrigue. We’ll remember each other, suffering but awake and watching merrily through the night. Thanks for joining along.
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I. Spain are first-time Champions of the World 🇪🇸🏆
Yet another raucous crowd of 75,784 gathered in Sydney on Sunday night to mark the final phase of a tournament we’ll remember for all time.
And what a fine, phenomenal final-festival of football it was. England’s Lionesses poised on one side, Spain’s La Roja readied on the other. Both prepared for their first-ever World Cup final. Both embodied the latest round of renewed European investment, development, and transcendence that portends the future of the women’s game. And with dynasty-ascendancy coiled within their dueling fists, we were treated to among the most entertaining World Cup finals this sport has ever seen.
England ran out an unchanged starting eleven, leaving the newly available (back from two-match suspension) Lauren James on the bench. Spain made moves, bold moves, moving the game-changing 19-year-old Barcelona virtuoso Salma Paralluelo into the starting XI. Alexia Putellas, the two-time Ballon D’or recipient still returning from an ACL injury, moved to the bench.
It was back and forth, hotly contested. Anyone’s for the taking at the beginning. Spain had the ball but England had plenty of early chances. That includes a shot off the bar from Lauren Hemp that may haunt her for the rest of time.
Out of the heat of a back and forth contest, though, it was La Roja’s heroic left back and captain Olga Carmona that broke through. As Lucy Bronze broke forward and left the space open behind, Spain capitalized, with Carmona ultimately sending the game-winning goal past Mary Earps with incredible, tight-angle precision.
England’s talismanic manager Sarina Wiegman made two bold changes at the half. England needed the energy, the reorganization. Whether they were the right choices remains unclear. For the long-time game changer in Chloe Kelly (who came on to make the historic difference in the Euros, the Finalisimma vs Brazil, and the game-deciding penalty vs Nigeria) and the burgeoning star of Chelsea’s Lauren James weren’t enough to redirect history’s flow.
But all of Spain’s painful poetry on the ball kept England “chasing ghosts”, in the words of Rog, through the remaining throes of the match.
England’s keeper of immeasurable skill and larger personality, Mary Earps, emerged victorious as ever midway through as she stopped Jenni Hermoso’s penalty to keep the Lionesses in the game. The stop came after Keira Walsh’s handball and predated a hearty, F*** OFF, in response, igniting no small measure of Lioness momentum directed the other way.
But it wasn't enough. And when the clock struck time on the thirteenth minute of extra time, it was Spain that became the fifth-ever Women’s World Cup Champions of the World.
MORE: Uncomfortable celebrations, inappropriate reactions and more tar Spain victory as Jorge Vilda’s reign and more marr La Roja triumph
II. NWSL is Back 🇺🇲🏆
The sickos need not worry. Football intrigue around the world hardly skips a beat. And with the 2023 World Cup in the rearview, NWSL is officially back.
This weekend across America, a parade of international World Cup heroes returned to action in NWSL as games picked up for the first-time since early July. And while a few players remain slowly returning from their tournaments down under with Brazil, Canada, Nigeria, the USA and beyond, many came tearing back into the league with goals and energy renewed.
In Portland, the reigning MVP and golden boot leader Sophia Smith moved her Thorns into first-place with a late match substitution for a ten woman side. Smith received a hero’s welcome as she ran onto the pitch at Providence Park in the 68th minute and within mere seconds, Smith lifted her team with the game-deciding goal.
With that clean, decisive finish, Smith has officially scored in 5 straight league matches for the second time in her career. Per Opta, she’s the first to collect multiple 5-game goal streaks since Sam Kerr.
Sophia Smith wasn’t alone in her heroic return to NWSL, though. Washington Spirit’s own USWNT midfielder Ashley Sanchez also scored within a minute as she subbed in for the Spirit in Houston.
III. News and Notes
FIFA’s Sarai Bareman vows to ensure bonuses to players are paid
Norway’s legendary striker and first-time women’s Ballon D’or winner Ada Hegerberg responds to Gianni Infantino’s ‘pick your battles’ speech
2023 World Cup reveals a new world order and the US is not in charge
IV. Parting Shots: Ode to Sam
This World Cup necessitates odes and thanks in many directions. For one, the gods of football, for smiling kindly on the far-off lands of Australia and New Zealand, where so much joy and wonder unfurled on a waiting world. For another, the footballers from all over the world that graced our screens and fields with a level of skill and heart we’ve never seen. And finally, Sam. Sam! Sammy Mewis, a legend of the game, a hero of heart, a World Cup Champion, a miracle of two-in-the-morning Twitch streams. We’d have been lost without her. And so here’s to Sam Mewis, who graced the Men in Blazers network through this incredible ninth edition of the ascendant women’s game. You can turn back time and catch all our past episodes by LISTENING HERE.
