It was a long and windy afternoon for the French national team this Thursday, and they didn’t put up much of a fight against the newly Phil Neville-led Lionesses of England. England took the match in hand without much trouble, coming away with a solid 4-1 win courtesy of goals from Toni Duggan, Jill Scott, Jodie Taylor, and Fran Kirby.
The scoring spree started early, when in the 7th minute Lucy Bronze found Nikita Parris on a throw in, who played it to Kirby, who flicked it to a wide-open Duggan who slotted it far post to put England up 1-0.
England’s success continued in the 28th minute when Lucy Bronze slipped a pass over a cool dummy from Parris to Jill Scott, who’s shot dribbled through the French box and past the keeper to put the Lionesses up 2-0.
Despite a strong individual performance from Eugenie Le Sommer, the French struggled to keep the pace with England’s squad, and the misery continued in the 39th minute when Parris floated the ball over the French defense, and Jodie Taylor timed her run perfectly to put England up 3-0.
The 3-0 scoreline held until just over a minute into the second half, when Kirby (who’d already put in a quality shift up until that point) found a cross from Scott to put the ball in the back of the net from point blank in front of the French goal, continuing the 4-0 route.
While France warmed into the match in the last 15 minutes, and pulled a goal back courtesy of a deflected shot from Gaetene Thiney, they’ll have a lot of questions to answer before they match up against the USA in New Jersey on March 4th. And England will be flying high as they go up against Germany as the tourney continues.
