Defender Lucy Bronze admitted England “are not happy” with their World Cup performances so far but vowed the Lionesses will step up in Saturday’s quarter-final against Colombia.
The European champions swept past China in their final group game, but that match remains an outlier in a tournament that has otherwise seen the Lionesses score just one other goal from open play.
That came against Denmark from Lauren James, who will miss the Lionesses’ last-eight encounter while she serves at minimum a one-game suspension after she was sent off in Monday’s last-16 victory over Nigeria.
“We can give more,” vowed Bronze. “We’re a fantastic team with highly-talented players, but the important thing is we got through to the next round.
“There’s no point in playing our best performances in the first games, we might as well save them for the quarter-finals or further than that.
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“We’ve built on every game, we’ve taken something from every game, whether that was the Haiti game that was physical, the Denmark game when we lost our key player in Keira [Walsh], the China game we changed the formation completely, [Monday] we had a red card.
“Everything that has been thrown at us, we’ve dealt with and moved forward.
“I don’t see many other teams who’ve had that adversity and if they had, I don’t think they’ve managed to overcome the way we have. At the same time, we are not happy with our performances.”
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World No 4 England, who have never reached a World Cup final, have so far managed to survive in the face of adversity.
It includes pre-tournament injuries to a number of key players including Leah Williamson, Beth Mead and Fran Kirby.
Key midfielder Walsh was then stretchered off against Denmark with a knee injury, although made a return against Nigeria. However, James was sent off after standing on the back of Michelle Alozie and could face a longer suspension from FIFA.
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Chelsea forward James, who has since apologised on Twitter, had already contributed three goals and three assists in the group stage so will be sorely missed for the Lionesses.
“All we can do is go back to training and make sure we are focused on the job at hand. The most important thing is that we’re coming out of games with wins,” Bronze added.
“I think I said that after the Haiti game, and some people thought that was not probably what they wanted. However, we’re the ones who are still in the competition and there’s many top teams who are going home because they haven’t
been able to get that point or been able to see the games out in the penalty shootout and we have.
“We’ve shown that side of our team that we know what it takes to win.”
What is the schedule?
The round of 16 concluded on Tuesday ahead of the quarter-finals, which will be held in Wellington, Auckland, Brisbane and Sydney, between August 11 and 12.
The first semi-final will then be played on August 15 in Auckland, with the other semi-final taking place on August 16 at the Accor Stadium in Sydney, which will then host the final on August 20.
A third-place play-off will be played the day before the final on August 19 in Brisbane.