Key events
65 mins: Pina, from wide on the left, sends in a cross that looks destined for the head of Lopez at the back stick but in the end floats just beyond her.
62 mins: A Spanish sub: Gonzalez is off and Paralluelo is on.
61 mins: An hour played, England have led for almost all of it and they should have scored three or four. For all the faith I have in the Lionesses, it’s not a sentence I expected to be typing.
59 mins: A yellow card for Paredes, who brought down Russo.
57 mins: And now James should probably score! She has the ball out on the right wing with Guijarro tight at her back, absolutely not and in no way a scoring position, but she spins away from her marker and into the area, and ends up with a lovely opportunity on her left foot to pick out the far corner. She doesn’t.
56 mins: And now Spain hit the post when they should have scored! Lopez passes to Batlle, and England’s entire defence is completely caught out by her brilliant first-time return, but Batlle’s effort clips the outside of the far post. Ludicrous five minutes, that.
54 mins: And again! Bronze curls a beauty of a pass through to Russo, who runs into the penalty area but is put off by a defender’s sliding challenge and shoots across goal and wide! I’m not convinced that shouldn’t have been a penalty, but nobody on the pitch or in commentary is complaining about it.
52 mins: England should score! They force Spain into a mistake, Russo pulls back to Kendall and she’s inside the area with time and space, but shoots high!
52 mins: The crowd sounds a bit quiet on the TV coverage. Getting a bit tense.
50 mins: Spain come so close to equalising! The ball deflects to Carmona inside the area, who works it onto her right foot and curls a shot into the bar. It bounces down just the wrong side of the line, and England hustle it away for a corner.
49 mins: Excellent work from Hampton, who hares out of her area to clear the ball after Gonzalez is played through.
47 mins: Putellas is given time and space outside England’s penalty area to pick a pass. She picks one that goes straight to Hampton.
46 mins: Peeeeeep! England get the second half started. There have been no halftimely substitutions.
Also tonight in group A3, it’s Iceland 0-0 Ukraine. At least one of those sides is winning their first point or points of the campaign tonight. That was a 7.30pm BST kick-off, so half an hour or so played there.
Tom Garry
Sarina Wiegman has got to be pretty pleased with this first-half performance. Her team grabbed the early goal and, since then, have done fairly well to keep Spain at bay, albeit the visitors have created some big chances. Wiegman will also be encouraged by how dangerous England have looked on the counter attack, with Lauren Hemp in great form, in particular. Sonia Bermúdez looks deep in thought as half-time approaches. The home fans seem very satisfied so far and the band behind the goal are making plenty of noise.
Half-time: England 1-0 Spain
45+3 mins: No significant goalmouth action during that added time, and England take a lead into the interval!
45+1 mins: There’ll be three minutes of first-half stoppage time.
45 mins: Caldentey curls a low cross in from the right, Gujarro deflects it goalwards, and Hampton makes a straightforward save at her near post.
42 mins: Play eventually restarts, with Bronze apparently fine (with some chalk up her nose).
41 mins: While those physios shove something up Bronze’s right nostril – cotton wool, I’m guessing, though it looks like a stick of old fashioned school chalk – the Spaniards gather around the bench for some tactical instructions.
39 mins: Bronze challenges for a header inside England’s area and goes down holding her head. Looks like she headed Putellas’s shoulder. Then Morgan jumps with Paredes and heads the Spaniard rather than the ball, and she too is hurt. The referee eventually stops play, and the physio comes on to check on Bronze.
37 mins: Save! The ball deflects off Hemp to Russo, who jinks into space in the area – but that space is quite far to the right of goal, and her shot is easily saved.
35 mins: Lovely interplay from England after a corner is half-cleared back to the right creates a shooting chance for Hemp, which hits a defender, and then another, which goes wide!
35 mins: This time Bronze’s long pass does find Russo … but she’s offside.
33 mins: Big chance for Spain! It’s Batlle, who has a shot blocked then gets it back again, carries it to within 12 yards of goal, and then humps her shot high!
31 mins: England try a couple of times to release Russo with long passes, but Spain snuffle that threat easily. This isn’t the way.
28 mins: England give the ball away inside the penalty area, and Spain work it quickly to Lopez, who curls her shot wide from the edge of the box.
26 mins: Another blocked shot, Morgan this time in the way of Lopez’s effort. The back four is a little deep, though, which means any mistake is quite likely to be punished.
23 mins: Only one shot on target in the game so far, with England currently playing it just perfectly, frustrating Spain and carrying a serious threat on the break.
19 mins: England hit the post! Hemp comes inside from the right, plays it forward to Bronze inside the penalty area, who backheels back into her path, and with time and space to pick her spot Hemp sidefoots into the far post! A brilliant interchange, and really it should have brought a second goal.
17 mins: Spain move the ball so well from defence to attack, but their latest foray forward ends with Caldentey taking an absolutely useless touch that biffs it back to England.
15 mins: England have had the ball for much of the last three minutes, but the Spanish penalty area has remained resolutely unentered. Indeed their half hasn’t been bothered for a while.
12 mins: Spain keep pushing, but their move ends with one shot being blocked, and another shanked wide.
9 mins: Chance! The ball deflects out for another Spain corner, and Paredes meets it at the far post with a meaty header that just clears the bar. I was worried this might be a bit cagey, but so far it’s been non-stop entertainment.
8 mins: Hampton gives the ball away deep inside England’s half, but Lopez wastes the opportunity – instead of sprinting into the box and shooting she runs towards the area before attempting a pass, which is intercepted.
7 mins: James is found in loads of space on the left, and she gets into the area, jinks past Batlle, and then blasts over from 10 yards or so.
5 mins: Spain now have a corner, but it drifts out for a goal kick. My description of the opener massively downplayed – in fact, completely failed to mention – what was actually an excellent assist from Russo, deliberately finding her teammate while flat on her back.
GOAL! England take the lead! England 1-0 Spain (Hemp, 3 mins)
A corner from the left drops off the back of a defender and falls to Hemp, who swivels and volleys goalwards from about four yards out. Putellas is on the line and hacks it clear, but it crossed the line first!
2 mins: An early foul from Russo, who hacks down Guijarro in the centre-circle. That’s a booking if it happens in the second half, but refs hate an early yellow.
1 min: And we’re off! Spain get the game started.
Right then, nothing between us and football but a few seconds and a whistle.
Tom Garry
There was a huge roar as Sarina Wiegman presented Keira Walsh with a ‘100’ shirt to celebrate the midfielder’s 100th cap tonight. The crowd sound up for this game.
As the players come out a giant three lions emblem is waved around across the centre circle by some uniformed members of the armed forces. It seems a bit demeaning for them, doesn’t it? Is this really what they’ve trained for? Especially when there are some perfectly good maritime straits in need of opening up/shutting down/whatever it is today.
The players are gathering in the tunnel, with kick-off around two anthems, some handshakes and five minutes away.
Tom Garry
Mary Earps has just been presented with a framed shirt on the pitch as the FA celebrate her England career. The former Lionesses goalkeeper received a very warm reception from the crowd. She said the favourite moment of her career was winning the Euros here on this ground in 2022, before receiving her presentation from the FA Chair Debbie Hewitt.
Here’s what Sarina Wiegman has to say …
… about the absent captain, Leah Williamson: “She’s going in the right direction. This was just a little bit too early. We don’t want to take a massive risk with her.”
… about 21-year-old Lucia Kendall, who’s making her competitive debut: “She’s very excited. I think she’s done really well. She’s in good form, I hope she can express herself tonight.”
… and about Keira Walsh, who stands in as captain on her 100th appearance: “A special moment for her, and good timing, playing in Wembley against Spain, so a top-level game. It shows what she has done for England football and how far she has come, and I hope still a lot more to come.”
The teams are out on the pitch and warming up. Here’s Lucy Bronze having a sit-down.
The teams!
Team news is in, and Keira Walsh makes her 100th England appearance in the team’s 499th game, with both sides looking most likely to line up in a 4-3-3:
England: Hampton; Bronze, Wubben-Moy, Morgan, Greenwood; Kendall, Walsh, Stanway; Hemp, Russo, James.
Spain: Coll; Batlle, Paredes, Mapi Leon, Carmona; Caldentey, Guijarro, Putellas; Lopez, Gonzalez, Pina.
Referee: Tess Olofsson (Sweden).
Preamble
Hello! Gird thy loins, world – it’s a hugely massively enormous World Cup qualifier!
Involved are the sides ranked first (that’ll be Spain) and fourth in the world by Fifa (no other group in League A has more than one top 10 side, notably), and the two finalists of last year’s Euros. Unlike England, downed 2-1 by Brazil in a friendly in their first game after winning that title, Spain haven’t lost since, but the two teams’ aggregate scores in six post-Euros matches – England 22-3 Opponents; Spain 14-2 Opponents (and with a much higher standard of opposition) reveal the quality of these sides.
The two teams are competing for one direct qualifying spot for next year’s finals in Brazil, with the other three sides – Iceland and Ukraine round out the group, both of them currently pointless after two matches – booted into various parts of a complicated play-off system. They’ll both want to avoid that if at all possible, and ergo would ideally win tonight. The question is whether one or indeed both of them will concentrate not on winning but on not losing.
Pre-match reading! Here’s Tom Garry’s preview:
Eight-and-a-half months after they locked horns in the final of Euro 2025, England and Spain meet again on Tuesday night in front of more than 70,000 at Wembley. This time it is in qualifiers for the Women’s World Cup, another tournament in which they met in the final last time out.
Despite the relatively brief period since the game in Basel, Spain have a noticeably fresh look with a new head coach and a crop of emerging young players. They have already won a trophy under Sonia Bermúdez, who led them to the Nations League title after replacing Montse Tomé, and, unlike England, are unbeaten since the Euros with five wins and a draw in six matches.
“They have some other players, but their DNA stays the same,” said the England head coach, Sarina Wiegman. “I don’t think that’s going to change.”
Much more here:
