The United States did it again yesterday, getting to the World Cup final by beating England with a broadly similar formula that we’ve seen them deploy against every team that has even a modest chance of beating them. Much like we saw against France, the USWNT came flying out of the gates early, got a lead, and mostly restricted their opponent to long-range chances from there.
Was there still some luck involved? Absolutely. Ellen White had a goal called back for an extraordinarily narrow offside call, and while Alyssa Naeher did very well in stopping Steph Houghton’s 84th minute penalty kick, it has to be said that the England captain’s attempt was quite poor.