Semi-finals are not new territory for the England women’s team. This will be their third in as many tournaments and a couple of Phil Neville’s squad have even been to a final, a decade ago at the 2009 European Championships. What is new is the scale of attention, which looks certain to reach an unprecedented peak in the history of the women’s game in England on Tuesday night, when Neville’s players face the United States in Lyons. A record audience of 7.6 million watched the quarter-final thumping of Norway on the BBC and as many as ten million could tune in for the next stage of the adventure. Is it too much to believe that those figures tell a story not only of changing attitudes…

Source: The Times June 28, 2019 16:07 UTC