Take a bow, Laura O’Sullivan.
The Welsh goalkeeper gave an inspired performance to help her side turn the much vaunted England’s Lionesses into cuddly pussy cats in a vital World Cup qualifier.
It is impossible to stress just how big the 0-0 draw secured by Jayne Ludlow’s team was in the development of women’s football in Wales. It was the first time Wales had taken a point off England and the first time the home side had failed to win a pool game in qualification.
Given that Phil Neville’s side, full of top ranked professional players and with millions of pounds of backing from the FA, are ranked as the world’s second best team, 32 places ahead of Wales, nobody expected them to be held at St Mary’s, Southampton.
Both teams came into the Group 1 game unbeaten, with Wales a point ahead thanks to the extra game they had played. And at the end of 90 minutes England remained in second place.
Much of that was down to the heroics of O’Sullivan in the Welsh goal as she made it 450 minutes without conceding a goal in this tournament with her fifth clean sheet. She made a string of great saves with a performance that Welsh greats of the past such as Jack Kelsey, Gary Sprake, Dai Davies, Nev Southall and Paul Jones would have been rightly proud.
“Laura was massive for us and kept us in the game. That result just shows where we are and how much we have developed,” said Welsh skipper Sophie Ingle.
“It was massive and we really put in a shift. England are the second best team in the world and we knew we wouldn’t have much time on the ball and they worked us hard.”
The significance of the game meant there were more than 25,000 fans at the ground and an audience that ran into the millions watching live on BBC2. It was quite simply the biggest game ever played by the Welsh women’s team . . . and their best ever result!
And it could have been an even better outcome had what looked like a goal been awarded in the first half when a shot by Natasha Harding took a deflection and was cleared off the line by Lucy Bronze. There was no goal-line technology, but the goal-line official indicated it was no goal.
“Don’t tell me that was a goal. At the end of the day, decisions are made in a split second,” said Wales coach Jayne Ludlow. “It would be great to sit here with three points but this is still great – one point is what we came here for.”
England had 22 shots, six on target, and 15 corners as they enjoyed 79% possession. O’Sullivan earned the plaudits of everyone for the way in which she stopped everything thrown at her. She pushed a dipping long range shot from the Arsenal playmaker Jordan Nobbs on to the bar, denied Barcelona forward Toni Duggan and then kept out a strike from Ellen White.
“It was the biggest game in which I have ever played and that’s my best performance. But it wasn’t just about me, there were 10 other girls out there as well,” said O’Sullivan, who was named as the 2017 Welsh Footballer of the Year.
England visit Bosnia on Tuesday to play their game in hand on Wales and remain favourites to take the one automatic qualifying place for next year’s World Cup finals in France. But Ludlow’s Welsh side have made a major statement in the Group and will no doubt be relishing the return fixture at home.
The draw ruined new England coach Phil Neville’s first home game and he admitted the draw “felt like a defeat.” He was, however, full of praise for Wales.
“We knew it was going to be difficult to break them down. We didn’t play well in the first half and we just didn’t put away our chances,” he said.
“The dominance we showed in the second half was better than we displayed in a disappointing first half. Full credit to Wales, tactically they nullified us. A draw was what they probably what they came for and what they got.”
