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Pat Nevin doesn't hold out much hope for USA's World Cup final adversaries

In the end, England didn't have enough to overturn champions USA in the FIFA Women's World Cup se...



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Pat Nevin doesn't hold out much hope for USA's World Cup final adversaries

In the end, England didn't have enough to overturn champions USA in the FIFA Women's World Cup semi-final.

They definitely troubled the US but Phil Neville's side ended up ruing a missed penalty that could have made it 2-2.

Ex-Chelsea and Scotland winger Pat Nevin is in France for the tournament. He joined us ahead of the second semi-final between Netherlands and Sweden to share his thoughts on England-USA.

"The Americans tactically are good. They're a wee bit ahead of everyone else and the coach Jill Ellis, she's got everything right, all the way through this tournament," he said.

Pat also gave his take on the penalty awarded to England via VAR - which Steph Houghton subsequently missed.

"Immediately, I went penalty kick," he said.

VAR

"Because I heard something. I heard a noise. Honestly, I was that close to it. And also sometimes, just the way people fall. The difference between an act and a clip at pace, [is] the way you bend over. Also [Ellen White's] reaction was anger as much as anything else."

While VAR has been under scrutiny, Pat feels its implementation has improved as the competition has wore on.

"Certainly, it's not getting stopped every 20 seconds now. They're not leaning on it as much as they were before," he said.

"When it's a major decision, they're going to it now and they've generally got the decisions right.

"The only thing I've got a problem with and many people have a problem with is they've changed a couple of the rules. Those rules, people were blaming VAR, but it wasn't VAR.

"Blaming some of these penalties when the arm's just out, that's a change in the rules. That's not the VAR, that's how they were interpreting the rules for this tournament."

Meanwhile, Pat believes USA will have too much for either Netherlands and Sweden in the final.

"They're two fairly good teams," he said of that latter semi-final match-up.

"But I can't call between them, who's going to go to the final. But I can tell you neither of them are going to win that final."

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England Football Netherlands Off The Ball Pat Nevin Sweden USA Women's World Cup