Women’s World Cup : England survive Nigeria fright

SYDNEY (AFP): The best teams find a way to win when playing badly, so says the football cliche, but England will surely be out of the Women’s World Cup if there is a repeat of their display against Nigeria.

The European champions got away with one on Monday in Brisbane as they stumbled into the quarter-finals 4-2 on penalties.

Nigeria are ranked 40th in the world to England’s four but they hit the woodwork twice and were clearly the better side, even before Lauren James was sent off in the 87th minute.

It was not like Sarina Wiegman’s players had not been warned.

Nigeria had defeated co-hosts Australia 3-2.

Brazil, Germany and Olympic champions Canada were all dumped out in the group phase as lower-ranked teams progressed.

Back-to-back defending champions the United States were then bundled out on penalties by Sweden in the last 16.

That left England as favourites to win the World Cup for the first time but they looked ponderous and devoid of ideas as they clung on for a 0-0 draw against Nigeria to force penalties.