One England player who will not be on the bus today is Jess Carter, who has travelled back to the United States for her Gotham FC’s pre-season. Hopefully the defender will feel the love across the pond though.
After the player was subjected to vile racist abuse after England’s quarter-final win against Sweden, she decided to take a step back from social media. Sarina Wiegman opted to drop her for the semi-finals but she came back in the side against Spain and put in a commanding performance for 120 minutes.
The most heartwarming sight was the joy she was clearly feeling after putting a difficult two weeks behind her to be part of a rearguard that conceded only once against the world champions as the game ended 1-1 after extra time. Asked about having a giggle with the head coach, Sarina Wiegman, after the game she said: ‘That is normally me. Throughout this tournament I’ve not felt that. I’ve been really quite sad and disappointed at the fact that I’ve not been the relaxed Jess I know.
‘I’m someone that is ‘what will be will be’. We go out there, give our all, and either it’ll be enough or it won’t. That’s not how I’ve played this tournament until I got to this final where I thought: ‘I’m going to give it my all.’ If we lose, we lose, and if we win, great. In extra time Sarina was giving me a lot of information and we realised she just said a lot of words, and it was cool, like, we got this, and she’s been great.’
At the start of the Mall, just before the Lionesses reach Buckingham Palace, thousands of fans have gathered all adorned with the flag of England and shirts of their favourite players. It also looks like the former Lioness Jill Scott is setting the scene on top of the bus.
The FA are putting on quite the performance for us while we wait for the team to come out – the England mascot is dancing to some classics and really energising the crowd!
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