There may have been some raised eyebrows at the unusual starting XI to play Spain but a gutsy and focused performance against a team laden with Barcelona’s Champions League winners earned a 0-0 draw and demonstrated there is serious depth to England’s squad looking ahead to the European Championship this summer.
In front of an impressive crowd of 14,284, with rail replacement buses disrupting travel to Carrow Road and the lashing rain, Lauren Hemp went closest for the Lionesses, smacking an effort against the post shortly after the restart on the second day of Arnold Clark Cup fixtures.
“I’m happy with the performance. I thought this performance was more mature than against Canada. That’s development,” Sarina Wiegman, the England manager, said.
“We want to win every game. That’s how we approach a game. But we also say we don’t win the Euros now. We’re trying to stay really neutral if we win or lose. This is just another stop on our journey to the Euros. We want to take every bit of information out of it.”
Wiegman had promised “some changes” to the starting XI to face the Catalan-heavy Spain and she delivered, with nine to the side that put in one of the best first-half performances the Lionesses have produced in years in their 1-1 draw with Canada on Thursday. Only Rachel Daly and Alex Greenwood remained, with the former shifted from right-back to left-back as backup options for Demi Stokes on the left are explored.
The successful double pivot partnership of Keira Walsh and Leah Williamson was relegated to the bench, with Manchester City’s Georgia Stanway instead operating as a single pivot in front of Greenwood and fellow centre-back Jess Carter.
The England manager had said she wanted to “do a little more research” on the double pivot and try it again, but added: “We want to see other things, too, this week. We want to try out different players in positions and see how they connect to each other, so it’s absolutely something that we want to see again. But we’ll try out some other things too.
“In football things are dynamic,” she said. “When you take a picture in a certain moment it’s two pivots, and when you take a picture of a certain other moment it might be one pivot, so we’re trying things out with other players, too.”
Spain had made five changes but the heartbeat of the side – the Ballon d’Or and Fifa best winner and Uefa player of the year, Alexia Putellas – remained with her fellow Barcelona midfielders Aitana Bonmatí and Patri Guijarro.
Despite the tricky trio helping Spain to dominate possession with 66% of the ball, the England triumvirate of Stanway, the Arsenal midfielder Jordan Nobbs and team veteran Jill Scott, impressed as the visiting team were limited to four shots on target and only one in the first half.
Keeping Spain at bay is no mean feat – they had scored 97 goals in their previous 17 games before this match in Norwich – but the unorthodox backline sitting in front of the debutant Hannah Hampton, whose distribution throughout was top notch, stood firm.
It is rare that you are left wondering what has to be done to Scott, a physical presence herself, for a foul to be given, but Spain were aggressive in the middle, conceding 14 fouls to England’s seven.
There was an urgency and intensity to England’s play that kept them in the game but Spain looked patient, their passing crisp, and they seemed happy to wait for the opening. Despite the pre-Euros hype, Spain have yet to win a knockout game at a major tournament and are very much newly competitive on the international stage. The arrival of the direct, Norwich-produced winger Hemp in the second half almost immediately caught the visiting side off-guard, though, as she shifted the ball on to her left foot 30 seconds after coming on before cracking the ball off the left-hand post with Misa Rodríguez beaten.
Wiegman had given a heads up on the change that would come around the hour. With Spain in the ascendancy but Lucía García shooting poorly wide from 10 yards out in their best attempt, the excellent Stanway was shifted forward and Walsh and Williamson came on for Scott and Nobbs as England attempted to maintain their intensity and solidity. England created a handful of chances late on but they lacked an end product. Hampton also did well to stop a blistering late shot from the substitute and player of the match Athenea del Castillo.
“I would be worried if we weren’t creating chances,” said the Spain manager, Jorge Vilda, whose team drew 1-1 with Germany in their opening game of the tournament. “Perhaps a little more cutting edge is needed to score the goals that we are after. We will work on this ahead of the Euros.”
