Mark Sampson’s England gamble hinges on some forward thinking

12 June 2015

England manager Mark Sampson took a calculated risk in their opening Women’s World Cup match. He gambled that refusing to go ‘toe-to-toe’ with France, even when a goal down, gave the Lionesses’ their best chance of progressing here in Canada.

England, inevitably having conceded after 29 minutes, lost 1-0, but this may not prove a bad result in the long run. Coming second in the group should result in an easier knock-out stage, and the odds are France, the world’s No3 ranked side, will beat the other Group F teams more substantially.

However, for Sampson’s ‘cunning plan’ to work England have to do the job against their other group opponents, Mexico and Colombia, who drew with one another in their first match.

England play Mexico tomorrow and although the Central American side looked vulnerable against Colombia on Tuesday, England will be wary. They were held to a 1-1 draw by Mexico in the last World Cup when seeding suggested a comfortable win.

Mexico, still seeking a first ever World Cup win, nearly did not make it to Canada requiring an extra-time play-off victory over Trinidad & Tobago.

They have a young side, significantly younger than England’s. However, Mexico’s age-group teams have done well in recent years. The Under-20s (coached by Christopher Cuellar, son of the senior team’s manager Leonardo) reached the quarter-finals in both the 2010 and 2012 editions of the world championships and many of those players are now in the senior side.

In an effort to counter their inexperience, Mexico have been engaged in an exhaustive series of matches during the last seven months with 18 games including the Cyrpus Cup in which they came third (England beat Canada in the final but did not play Mexico en route).

Cuellar senior, who played for Mexico at the 1978 men’s World Cup in Argentina, said: “We wanted to build momentum as a team. Having lots of matches has been good for us, especially against high-quality teams in tournament situations. We played three European teams at the Cyprus Cup and that was very good experience for us leading up to the World Cup. We are a young team so gaining tournament experience before Canada was important.

”We had a very good performance against England in the last World Cup.Even when England were better than us we we were in the game and had some powerful chances to maybe win it.”

Mexico need to win this time, they cannot expect to beat France, which should be to England’s advantage as it will open up space for them to attack. And attack they will. Sampson said TV viewers would see a different England to the one that sought to stifle France, a view that was backed up by defender Claire Rafferty.

“We will change tactics for Mexico,” she said. “We’re going to have to go and win against them. We need as many points as we can to get through. The tactics will be very different.”

That is likely to mean several changes in midfield and attack with Lianne Sanderson and, if fit, Karen Carney, Jordan Nobbs and Jodie Taylor, returning to the side. Goalpoacher Fran Kirby is also an option with the ball likely to be in and around the Mexican penalty area far more than it was France’s.

However, England will have to retain possession much better than they did against France when they simply hooked the ball long in the vague direction of isolated striker Eniola Aluko most of the time.

It is likely to be another wet day at Moncton Stadium which, said Lucy Bronze, made the surface ‘slick’ on Tuesday. This time England need the slickness to be in their play.

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Mark Sampson’s England gamble hinges on some forward thinking

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