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England Women head coach Phil Neville wants his side to \u201cdevelop the serial winner mentality\u201d \u2013 and warned going home from the World Cup on the back of a semi-final defeat \u201cwould represent failure\u201d.<\/p>\nEngland Women head coach Phil Neville wants his side to \u201cdevelop the serial winner mentality\u201d \u2013 and warned going home from the World Cup on the back of a semi-final defeat \u201cwould represent failure\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Lionesses produced the most impressive display of their campaign in France so far with a 3-0 win over Norway on Thursday to progress to the last four of a major tournament for the third successive time.<\/p>\n
Waiting next in Lyon on Tuesday night are defending champions the United States, who ended the hosts\u2019 challenge with a 2-1 win at Parc des Princes as they remain very much focused on what would be a fourth World Cup triumph.<\/p>\n
It is such determination to be the best which Neville believes the current England squad must emulate if they are to make the most of their opportunity.<\/p>\n
\u201cA semi-final defeat would represent failure. This England team is ready to win now,\u201d Neville said, quoted in several national newspapers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the FA (Football Association) know I am doing a good job but I said to the players this morning that it would be easy now for them to think \u2018whatever happens now, we have got to the semi-final, my reputation is intact, we\u2019ll probably get invited to Downing Street, everybody loves us at home.\u2019 I don\u2019t want that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to develop the serial winner mentality. We have to develop that ruthlessness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want us saying that there is no pressure on us. That\u2019s the safe way to think. We have to be even braver.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe only way for us to go back home is as winners. If we don\u2019t, we have to keep striving to understand that losing in a semi-final is not OK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville accepts England will have to raise their performance levels yet again to get past the USA, whose \u201cruthlessness is their strength\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cWe have got to be 20 per cent braver than we have ever been before to win this game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the game we wanted. We have always known that when we got to the World Cup, we were going to have to beat the USA if we were going to win the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have reached the moment now where we have to deliver. This is the moment my players have been waiting for.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not going to back away from this challenge. We have planned and prepared for this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in great shape. I don\u2019t think they will look forward to playing us. If they are looking at teams who can challenge them, we will be number one or two on their list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neville had arranged for Dame Katherine Grainger \u2013 the most-decorated British female Olympian with five rowing medals, three silvers coming before gold at London 2012 \u2013 to record a video for the squad as they prepared for the quarter-final against Norway, for his players to \u201chear her message \u2013 winning hurts\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cWe have to suffer and go beyond our expectations. We have to trust in the pain we have gone through and the sacrifices we have made and go with your heart and your head and accept it is going to hurt.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat she told them had a more powerful effect than anything I could have said.\u201d<\/p>\n
With France losing to the USA, England are among the top three European sides at the World Cup, which will secure a place for Great Britain at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.<\/p>\n
The squad is set to be made up of players from other Home Nations, and Neville is relishing those opportunities ahead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will be the coach that takes the team to the Olympics. I have not thought about it but obviously when the USA won, it confirmed our place in Tokyo and it is exciting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeven out of the eight teams in the quarter-finals were from Europe and qualifying for the Olympics was one of the targets I had for this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is going to be very special, but let\u2019s go and win a World Cup first.\u201d<\/p>\n