Sarina Wiegman has questioned whether she is “in a fairytale” after guiding England to their first Women’s World Cup final following a 3-1 win against co-hosts Australia.
Ella Toone, who replaced the suspended Lauren James for the Lionesses’ quarter-final win over Colombia, scored 36 minutes into her third start of the tournament in front of a capacity crowd of 75,784 in Sydney.
Australia captain Sam Kerr, making her first start of competition, equalised for the first-time semi-finalists with a stunning individual goal after the break before Lauren Hemp put England back out in front.
Alessia Russo made it 3-1 late in the second half to cap off the historic encounter and set up an all-European final showdown against Spain on Sunday.
Wiegman will now appear in a fourth successive final as a head coach after winning the 2017 Women’s Euros with the Netherlands, who she managed in the World Cup final defeat to the United States two years later, before she led England to European glory last summer.
Speaking after the semi-final victory pitchside, Wiegman told BBC One: “We achieved the final and it’s unbelievable, it feels like we’ve won it.
“But we won this game, it’s an incredible stadium, an away game, of course it was a hard game but again we found a way to win.
“We scored three goals, in this team that ruthlessness, whether it’s up front or in defence we really want to keep the ball out of the net, we really want to win and we stick together. We stick to the plan and it worked again.”
She added: “The chance as a coach you make it to two finals is really special, I never take anything for granted but I’m like – am I in a fairytale or something?”
England defender Lucy Bronze was overwhelmed after finally reaching the World Cup final at the third time of asking after featuring in England’s previous semi-final defeats.
“This is the one thing I’ve always wanted, to be in the final of a World Cup and after two times of getting such disappointment, I honestly can’t believe it.”
She added: “We all dreamed of being in the final and all our family and friends booked here to stay until the final because they believed in us. To have everybody here and all that support is unbelievable.
“It’s been amazing to play against Australia, what a fantastic tournament they had, but I’m so happy to get to the final.”
Sunday’s final sees Bronze and Keira Walsh pitted against some of their Barcelona team-mates and the defender praised Spain’s performance in the tournament.
Bronze said: “They’ve been very good. Me and Keira know 90 per cent of the starting 11 pretty well so I think we’ll be getting asked a lot of questions ahead of the final.”
Captain Millie Bright echoed her team-mate’s sentiments that “the dream remains alive”.
“I think it’s a moment that we’ve wanted for so long, we had amazing success last summer, but we always knew there was something missing and it was the World Cup,” she said.
“Now we have that opportunity and like Less (Russo) said before, the dream remains alive. What an incredible semi-final.”
Bright will lead the team out on Sunday and admitted it will feel “incredible”.
She added: “Crazy, to be honest I’m just keeping two feet on the ground and remaining on task and focused,” she said.
“I don’t even have any words for that, to be saying we’re going to the final is crazy and overwhelming – there’s so many different emotions.
“Just so happy we could give the fans the dream they wanted back home and the fans that are here as well, but to lead them out will be absolutely incredible.”
Arsenal 3-0 Nottingham Forest: Saka shines on Arteta's landmark outing
Bukayo Saka’s inspired performance helped Arsenal return to winning ways in Mikel Arteta’s 250th game in charge as they swept aside Nottingham Forest 3-0 on Saturday.
Saka scored one and set up another to cap a fine individual display in what was an excellent team performance from the Gunners.
Having danced into the box to drill home a crisp finish for the opener, Saka turned provider for Thomas Partey early in the second half, with the midfielder curling the ball into the left-hand corner.
Ethan Nwaneri combined with fellow substitute Raheem Sterling to slide home his first Premier League goal and add further gloss late on.
Arsenal’s victory saw them go level with Chelsea on 22 points, but they remain in fourth place, while Forest drop down to sixth after back-to-back league defeats.
Data Debrief: Gunners reach landmark triumph
Arsenal have often relied on Saka to produce moments of magic since his integration into the first-team, and it seemed fitting that his display would help the Gunners to their 2,000th victory in English top-flight history.
Only Liverpool's Mohamed Salah (14) has been involved in more Premier League goals this season than Saka (12 – four goals, eight assists), with his impressive performance backed up by the match statistics.
The England international registered more shots (six) and more touches in the opposition box (13) than any of his team-mates, while his four chances created was a total only bettered by Martin Odegaard (six).
But there was also a special moment for substitute Nwaneri. At 17 years and 247 days, he is now Arsenal's second-youngest Premier League goalscorer, behind only Cesc Fabregas against Blackburn Rovers in August 2004 (17y 113d).
Verona 0-5 Inter: Five-star visitors go top of Serie A
Inter hammered lowly Verona 5-0 away from home on Saturday to move top of the Serie A table, with all five goals coming in the first half.
The hosts could easily have taken the lead through Casper Tengstedt just six minutes in as he struck the post after causing chaos in the box, but Inter sparked to life after that.
Joaquin Correa rattled the crossbar moments later, and then opened the scoring after 17 minutes, finishing off a lovely team move by chipping Lorenzo Montipo.
Having set up the opener, Marcus Thuram added a quick-fire double; twice in three minutes, he took the goalkeeper out of the game with clever play before picking out the back of the net.
Substitute Stefan de Vrij fired their fourth past Montipo before Yann Bisseck managed to pick out the top corner despite initially tripping over the ball in the 41st minute.
The second half was a subdued affair, though Correa almost scored another, but instead smacked the crossbar for a second time.
Inter leapfrogged Napoli, who do not play until Sunday, as they moved into first with 28 points. Verona are 14th on 12 points.
Data Debrief: Full-throttle first half
It was a pretty much perfect first half from Simone Inzaghi's side, and it gave the manager a chance to rest some key players with a Champions League tie ahead of them in midweek.
Inter scored five goals in the first half of an away league game for only the second time in their history in Serie A - after the 5-1 score against Sampdoria in the first 45 minutes of play back in March 1964.
The visitors scored with all five of their shots on target in the first period and outperformed their 2.79 expected goals (xG) by some margin.
Correa has scored in a Serie A game 756 days after his last goal in the top-flight, on 29th October 2022, against Sampdoria, at Meazza. Meanwhile, all three of his away goals have come against Verona at Bentegodi.
Chelsea not focused on Liverpool and Man City, insists Jackson after Leicester win
Chelsea are not getting carried away by talk of a title challenge following their 2-1 win over Leicester City, according to striker Nicolas Jackson.
Jackson netted his seventh Premier League goal of the season and was joined on the scoresheet by Enzo Fernandez on Saturday, as Enzo Maresca got one over on his former club at the King Power Stadium.
The result lifted the Blues to 22 points in third, just one adrift of champions Manchester City in second and six behind leaders Liverpool.
Speaking to TNT Sports after the game, Jackson said: "We know the months of November and December have a lot of games, so we just try to recover for the next one and go again.
"I saw the danger, then the ball came to Enzo, he gave it to me and he finished. I'm just working in every game to try to help the team win."
Asked if Chelsea were now thinking of themselves as title challengers, he added: "No, we don't look at the teams in front of us, we just try to win every game."
Five of Jackson's goals this season have come on the road, the most of any player in the Premier League.
Since the start of May, only Erling Haaland (18) has bettered Jackson's 11 goals in the competition overall.
Leicester got a stoppage-time consolation through Jordan Ayew's penalty, though they earlier felt aggrieved not to be awarded a spot-kick when Stephy Mavididi was seemingly felled by Wesley Fofana in the 85th minute.
Boss Steve Cooper lamented that call, saying: "We've had some terrible luck with this referee. That continued today.
"There's also the game to talk about. Tough first half in terms of Chelsea territory and dominance with the ball. We gave away a poor goal. It should have been 0-0.
"Defensively we were generally okay. We need to be showing courage and belief. If we do that we can create chances and be a threat.
"The big moment is the first penalty not given, it's clear what happened there. The second one was offside [before VAR] and you see how onside he was.
"That was the story of the officials' game. You can speak to them after 30 minutes. I'm not sure if I will or won't."
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