Japan

2-2

England

Miyama 55, Miyama 90+5

Smith 81, 83


World Cup Finals 2007
Group A
1pm (8pm local time), Tuesday 11 September 2007
Hongkou Stadium, Shanghai

Kelly Smith says she is proud of the England performance in Shanghai, believing it was worthy of a victory, and hailed the character of the players to come from a losing position with just ten minutes remaining.

Smith was named player of the match following a typically forceful performance, the Arsenal forward showed her determination to let nothing stand in the way of England's World Cup dreams as Japan somehow withstood the onslought from the Three Lions.

"On the night we deserved all three points with a great performance," Smith explained. "We dug deep and showed a lot of character - I'm very proud of the girls tonight.

"Around the hour mark I was emotionally tired, my legs were heavy and I just kept telling myself 'Just keep going, just keep going'. Lucky for me I had two chances that came my way and I managed to put them in the back of the net.

"But I'm just a little bit gutted for myself and the team because I felt we put on a performance that was worthy of three points.

"With a minute to go I could feel myself smiling inside, thinking 'Oh my God, we've picked up three points in the first game'. But then with the last kick of the game my emotions were just crazy, I thought we've thrown the game away. So I was on a real high and then brought back down to earth."

As for her unique celebration, Smith told journalists that it was something she dreamed about the night before the game following an upgrade on her boots from sponsors Umbro.

Smith said: "Umbro put my name on my boots for this tournament, and I dreamt the night before that if I was to score I would take them off and show everyone. I don't tie them up too tight so it was quite easy to get them off quickly."

Looking ahead to the next encounter Smith is calm and collected when speaks about Germany, a team she and the England team have faced on a number of occasions in recent years.

"We've played Germany a number of times and I'm confident we can get a result out of that one - the group's still open. There are two games to go, and I do feel we are still in it.

"We don't fear anybody. We're a good side going forward and we showed that again, we were one-nil down and we showed great spirit to turn the game in our favour. We have to take a lot of confidence from that in the next game."

Teams:

Japan: 1 Miho Fukumoto, 2 Hiromi Isozaki (c), 3 Yukari Kinga (13 Kozue Ando 46), 7 Tomomi Miyamoto (6 Ayumi Hara 71), 8 Tomoe Sakai, 9 Eriko Arakawa, 10 Homare Sawa, 15 Azusa Iwashimizu, 16 Aya Miyama, 18 Shinobu Ohno, 20 Rumim Utsugi

Substitutes: 4 Kyoko Yano, Miyuki Yanagita, 11 Mio Otani, 12 Nozomi Yamago, 14 Nayuha Toyoda, 17 Yuki Nagasato, 19 Mizuha Sakaguchi, 21 Misaki Amano

Coach: Hiroshi Ohashi

England: 1 Rachel Brown, 2 Alex Scott (20 Lindsay Johnson 89), 3 Casey Stoney, 4 Katie Chapman, 5 Faye White (c), 6 Mary Phillip, 7 Karen Carney, 8 Fara Williams, 9 Eniola Aluko (16 Jill Scott 74), 10 Kelly Smith, 11 Rachel Yankey

Substitutes: 12 Anita Asante, 13 Siobhan Chamberlain, 14 Rachel Unitt, 15 Sue Smith, 17 Jody Handley, 18 Lianne Sanderson, 19 Vicky Exley, 21 Carly Telford

Coach: Hope Powell

Attendance: 27,146