‘I felt free’: Lauren James explains starring role to inspire England at World Cup

Lauren James was in dreamland after her two excellent finishes helped a resurgent England attain the knockout phases of the Women’s World Cup with a dominant 6-1 victory towards China.

Appearing at her first main match for England, James netted final match towards Denmark and located England’s third objective of the match with an exquisite curling effort from a set-piece simply earlier than half-time.

The Chelsea ahead was denied one other shortly after when her edge-of-the-box end was controversially dominated out for offside however discovered the again of the online as soon as once more after the break when her perfectly-timed volley noticed England take a four-goal lead.

“It’s what dreams are made of,” she mentioned to ITV Sport when reflecting on the match. “[I’m] happy for the team; everyone is buzzing. We are looking forward to the next round

“I felt free. Whether I’m on the wing or in the middle, I’m happy to be playing and contributing to goals.

“It was frustrating [to have one ruled out] but those things happen. I’m just looking forward to the next one. Each game, I’m looking to get better and there are many more years of improvement. I just have to stay focused.”

Having solely made her debut for the Lionesses in a World Cup qualifier final September, James now seems to have made herself indispensable to this England beginning lineup, together with her brace right this moment making the 21-year-old England’s prime goalscorer at the match with three objectives.

Alongside her two objectives, James additionally contributed two assists, making the youngest participant on report (2011 onwards) to be immediately concerned in 4+ objectives in a single Women’s World Cup match.

“She feels good, you can tell,” England boss Sarina Wiegman mentioned to ITV. “She did special things today, she flows over the pitch.”

Following the possibly tournament-ending harm to midfield lynchpin Keira Walsh towards Denmark, Wiegman made quite a few modifications for right this moment’s closing group sport, together with a change of formation from the standard 4-2-3-1 to a 3-5-2.

Those modifications took simply 4 minutes to take impact as Alessio Russo fired residence her first World Cup objective after simply 4 minutes. Striker accomplice Lauren Hemp doubled the lead with a well-taken end earlier than James’ brace – sandwiched between China’s objective from the penalty spot – moved England 4-1 forward.

Chloe Kelly and final season’s Women’s Super League prime goalscorer, Rachel Daly, added late objectives as England equalled their finest outcome at a girls’s World Cup.

“I said before the game we had to do things a little different than we did before,” Wiegman added. “We did really well it shows how adaptive we are on the pitch.

“We want to use the qualities we have now and today it worked really well. We expected China to press high because they had to win to go through. But they just stayed in shape. They didn’t expect us to play this way and they didn’t find a solution.”

Having topped the group, England advance to the spherical of 16 the place they’ll face Nigeria.