This World Cup has stirred up contradictory feelings.
The tournament has been defined by the dichotomy between off-field excellence and what has happened in the shadows; by teams who have succeeded despite their federations rather than because of them; and players who have been forced to weigh up their personal ambitions against the cost of competing at all. Fitting, then, that not even the tournament’s champions, Spain, can lift the trophy without an asterisk next to their name.
That sense of ambivalence has hallmarked much of the tournament. It extends, in its own way, to the tricky question of what this tournament’s legacy will be, what this England team means to its country and how we should talk about it all.
Discussing the final as a match feels easy by comparison: two sets of players from golden generations, one side dominating possession, an ill-advised run from Lucy Bronze, and all the other bits. Pinpointing what has become of women’s football fandom, in the aftermath of a second major tournament final in as many years, is slightly trickier.
The most prevalent question has been: just how big is this for the country? We can point to the viewing figures — more than seven million for England vs Australia — but even they tell only a fraction of the story. An…
