How America helped build England’s rising women’s soccer powerhouse

SYDNEY, Australia — In sports and in life, England usually likes to do things its own way. And most of the time, it isn’t shy about saying so.

If you watch England’s men’s national team or the much-vaunted Premier League, you’ve seen this plenty: the hype, the money, the eternal insistence that it’s better than anyone else. The nation’s Women’s Super League is starting to act the same way, as its top clubs — big names like Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester City — spend big to attract star players.

But when it comes to England’s women’s national team, there’s a notable amount of outside influence. And there’s a particular amount of influence from the United States.

Lionesses stalwarts Lucy Bronze, Alessia Russo, and Lotte Wubben-Moy played college soccer at North Carolina. Rachel Daly played college soccer at St. John’s, then spent 6½ years with the NWSL’s Houston Dash. Laura Coombs spent two summers with a lower-league team in Los Angeles early in her pro career. And manager Sarina Wiegman played one season with the Tar Heels that had a huge influence on the rest of her life.

Now here they all are, one year after winning the European Championship, and one win away from delivering England its first women’s World Cup title. It’s a potential dynasty in the making, and the world knows it.

» READ MORE: England spoils co-hosts Australia’s party, advances to first women’s World Cup final

Wiegman still keeps in touch with longtime North Carolina coach Anson Dorrance, 34 years after she suited up for the Tar Heels.

“Once in a while, he sends texts,” Wiegman said. “Of course, he’s very proud of the environment he created at UNC for years and years and years. It’s just, working hard, very performance [oriented], but also like family. … He’s always very proud of former Tar Heels, which is really nice to read, and he always connects people.”

Bronze said after England’s steely semifinal win over Australia that she, Russo, and Wubben-Moy hear from Dorrance quite often, including during this World Cup.

“I actually texted him today because we bumped into Brandi Chastain in the hotel, so me and Lotte had a picture and sent it to him,” Bronze said. “The Colombia game, he was like, ‘Oh, it’s fantastic that you and ‘Less are the front and the back of the team — we’ve got Tar Heels written all over the England team.’ So it’s nice to have that little bit of extra support in America, which probably people wouldn’t expect us to have.”

Indeed, they would not. But they would recognize England’s great mental strength as something Dorrance might have helped install.

“I think we show a fight in an England team that people don’t expect from us,” Bronze said. “Last year, we had an unbelievable quality of scoring goals for fun; this year, we’ve had to adapt a little bit and show a big fight and a desire and resilience to get through games.”

» READ MORE: Vlatko Andonovski resigns as U.S. women’s national team manager

Dorrance recently praised his former pupils in an interview with England’s Press Association wire service.

“We’re rooting for them now [that] the U.S. has been knocked out,” he said. “We’d have been rooting for them anyway to at least get to the final, but now we’re rooting for them to go all the way.”

And with his trademark aplomb, he added: “Go Sarina, go England, win the whole damn thing, would you, please?”

She might just.

“For me, at that moment, that was life-changing,” Wiegman said of her time at UNC. “So I took that back to the Netherlands and it changed me. And I just always hoped that at the moment [in the future], that we could [have] an environment like what we had at that time at UNC.”

England does now, and really has in this World Cup. The Lionesses came from behind to beat Colombia and overcame Sam Kerr’s epic equalizer to beat Australia, each time with tens of thousands of fans roaring against them in the stands.

“I think Sarina and the coaching staff are a big part in that,” Lionesses star midfielder Keira Walsh said. “I think when you look to the side and she has full belief in us, she’s confident, she never really looks under pressure — I think you can feel that when you’re playing.”

» READ MORE: Sarina Wiegman says she’ll stay with England amid clamor from U.S.

Coincidentally, this England team also has influences from the nation it will play in Sunday’s final (6 a.m. Philadelphia time, Fox29, Telemundo 62, Peacock). Bronze and Walsh are club teammates with nine of Spain’s players at Barcelona, another of the world’s preeminent clubs. Barcelona has won the last four Spanish league titles and reached four of the last five Champions League finals, winning this year and in 2021.

“Those are the players you want to be playing against,” Walsh said, specifically noting fellow midfielder Aitana Bonmatí. “I play against her in training and it raises my game level.”

Walsh and Bronze said they’ve traded text messages with their club teammates about potentially meeting in the final.

“I’ve been speaking to a few of them throughout the tournament,” Bronze said. “And even before the tournament started, we had a joke saying, ‘See you in the final,’ and obviously, it’s come true.”

They’ve been rooting for each other along the way, Walsh added, but “maybe not on Sunday.”

» READ MORE: The USWNT’s long era of success is over, but a new one could be on the horizon

For the first time in men’s or women’s World Cup history, an American will be the lead official for a championship game.

Tori Penso was appointed by FIFA on Friday as the center referee, with Brooke Mayo and Philadelphia-based Kathryn Nesbitt as the assistant refs. Japan’s Yoshimi Yamashita will be the fourth official.

There also will be an American on the video review team, MLS veteran Armando Villarreal.

Nesbitt also was a backup official for the men’s World Cup final last fall in Qatar, along with veteran American ref Ismail Elfath. Kyle Atkins and Corey Parker worked on the video review team. It was the first time American referees were involved in a men’s World Cup final.

There has never been an American official in a women’s World Cup final, and not just because the U.S. has played in five of the eight finals contested before this year. There were no Americans involved in the three previous finals the U.S. did not make: 1995 in Sweden, 2003 in the U.S., and 2007 in China.

» READ MORE: Kate Markgraf stepping down as GM of U.S. women’s national team

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