England 1 Spain 4

Earlier in the day just for a minute England looked like it could be second in the group as Holland moved into a 2 – 1 lead over France. Unfortunately, Holland needed a 2 goal win to move off bottom spot and had to take chances that let France equalize. So, the only route to top 8 was to beat Spain – not very likely.

Giving a one-on-one to Spain in the first 10 seconds was not the planned start but it took another 13 minutes for Spain to score their second goal. Livewire No. 4 Jordi Bargallo did the damage on both occasions.

Brendan Barker had 2 good chances to equalize in the 2nd minute but the half saw a total of just 4 England shots to Spain’s 37.

3-0 came from the penalty spot 4 minutes into the 2nd half but Ian Morrison stopped Pedro Gill scoring from the spot (in fact Gill failed to score in this match).

Six minutes to go and England were awarded a direct free-hit which James Taylor converted expertly.

At 3 – 1, Spain threw the whole book at England until there was no room to record shots on the stats sheet. The defense was resolute and Morrison stopped everything that got through until 17 seconds to go.

Inevitably a defensive performance and a great one by the whole team and especially Morrison in goal for the whole match and who had faced over 70 shots from Spain.

So, no top 8 place for England but into the final phase with just 3 players carrying blue cards (James, Brendan and Darrel (2)).

Next match USA at 1:30pm on Thursday.

Group C positions: 1st Spain 12 points GF17 GA2, 2nd France 4 points GF4 GA8, 3rd England 3 points GF6 GA6, 4th Holland 1 point GF3 GA14

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Reporter: Aileen Barker