Germany came from behind to beat England in the SheBelieves Cup to set up an interesting final match versus the USA. The game was marred by some controversial decisions.
England took the lead through a early goal. Alex Greenwood's free kick came back to her, she crossed it back into the box and Toni Duggan headed it in to settle nerves. Both teams pressed well with England looking like the better team going into half time.
Germany made some early substitutions to bring on Sara Däbritz and Lena Goeßling on in the place or Dzsenifer Marozsán and Melanie Behringer. There was a disallowed goal for Germany as it was judged to be offside. However, later on, Däbritz scored the equaliser. It took a deflection off of Gilly Flaherty who had tried to put it wide.
A few minutes later, Germany were awarded a shock penalty which Babett Peter put away to ensure the three points were theirs. England could have equalised in the last few moments with Fran Kirby through on goal but Laura Benkarth made sure she came out early to gather up.
150th cap for Williams
Fara Williams earnt her 150th cap this match. She is the most capped England player of all time. Alex Scott is second and she earnt her 130th cap. Eniola Aluko will have to wait til the next match to become a centurion.
Williams was judged to have fouled Popp and that lead to the penalty decision. Mark Sampson commented on the decision this game and previously saying that the Lionesses "should have had a penalty against America" and that the Germany penalty "wasn’t a penalty"
All to play for
Germany will look to win against the USA to win the whole tournament. Meanwhile, England will play France in hope of a win to come away with something from the SheBelieves Cup. Will they avenge the defeat suffered at the World Cup? We shall have to wait and see.
Looking forward to Euro 2017
This is the one of the major tournaments for England as there will be no Team GB at the Rio Olympics but the other teams will be going. This gives players more time to focus on qualifying for Euro 2017 and also focus on the FAWSL.
England will be playing their toughest match in the Euro 2017 qualifiers versus Belgium at the New York Stadium, Rotherham, on 8 April. If they win that, then they should be able to qualify comfortably for the Euros.
Talking of the tournament, Sampson said that the lessons the Lionesses are "learning in this tournament are incredible". The team will be looking at the bigger picture with more regular football coming soon with the WSL season starting late this month.