By whatever scale you choose to measure, this has been the largest Women’s World Cup in history: breadth of entrants, depth of talent, height of achievement, volume of observers, width of impact. Now, though, that amounts to nothing more than the wake. All that’s left is this.
By Sunday night in Australia, there will be a new women’s world champion. For the first time, that status will be bestowed on either England or Spain, both making their debuts in the final. Whichever way it falls, it will represent the advent of Europe — or, at least, the moneyed major leagues of Western Europe — as the game’s pre-eminent force. This is the culmination of one journey, and the start of another.
It feels, instinctively, as if England should be the favorite to take that final step. It’s not just that Sarina Wiegman’s team is unbeaten in this tournament. It’s that it is the reigning European champion, too, the taste of that victory last summer still fresh. It’s that, while injury has robbed England of a handful of its best players, the squad is not in a state of simmering enmity with its coach. It’s that it is not held together by some uneasy, and…
