NOW World Cup: Why did England struggle to score against Haiti?

England entered 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup With the second best chance of winning everything.

And anyway, their chances of doing so are still high. But the team showed some notable shortcomings in a 1–0 victory over a Haitian team making their World Cup debut, most of them on the offensive side of the ball.

England struggled to put the ball in the net. The lone goal also came after a repeated penalty attempt, when the referee determined that Haitian goalkeeper Kérli Thiès – who had saved the first attempt – had left the box too early. Otherwise, the Lionesses didn’t roar and Thais – despite the loss – was probably the best player of the day with 10 total saves.

The “World Cup Now” team – Jimmy Conrad, Stu Holden and Melissa Ortiz – looked into England’s scoring battles and speculated on the reason during the match.

Ortiz: “I don’t think England have played at their best so far. …of course Theseus [was] Well… she’s been good. …I hand it over to Haiti. His performance whether it is defensive, winning tackles, being strong, winning 50-50 balls, and also being organized. …It’s a balance of the two, Haiti definitely showed us a good presence in this first matchup.

Holden: “I think Jimmy too, one of the big things we talked about with England was their inability to score. He didn’t score in his first two games… He got a few chances here and there but couldn’t convert any of them. But really, I think it was a game in which I was 4-0 ahead of the game.

Conrad: “And it is understandable. I mean, we’ve seen in a lot of first games in all kinds of competitions that people are still trying to figure it out, and when you’ve got such serious injuries like England’s, it’s not surprising they’re a bit unconvincing. they are notS Fluid and flexible, like they must have been when they won the European Championships.”

Holden: “This is the current European champion in England, injured or not, injured or not. I think you’re taking Haiti for granted because it goes way beyond that. but still i don’t think [manager] Sarina Wiegmann – who is now on the field talking to her team – I don’t think she’ll be too happy about it. I thought when England reached the finish line, they were a bit frivolous. One of the things we talked about was crossing a box – not great. They really weren’t able to pass the ball that often, and they started on the counter-attack. So England still has a lot to improve. ButHe has three points.”

Conrad: “Kind of a sigh of relief, you know. ‘We didn’t do our best, but we got the three points.’

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