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As Wayne Rooney's milestone 100th cap at Wembley last Saturday and his three goals in two matches, edging him ever close to Sir Bobby Charlton’s all-time England scoring record, have captured English football's imaginations and headlines of late, over this same time frame, the English women’s team have quietly, and rather assuredly, gone about their business some 100-plus miles outside of London, all climaxing, come Sunday morning our time, in a rather monumental moment for women’s soccer in England - in fact, make that for English soccer itself.

The venue is Wembley Stadium. The occasion is a rather prestigious friendly between two footballing nations with rather large designs on the FIFA Women’s World Cup head in Canada next summer.

The current European champion Germans will put their second-place FIFA ranking on the line against England, who just in early August, throttled fifth-ranked Sweden 4-0. That match was played in rather unfashionable Hartlepool in front of a crowd of less than 5,000.

Some three months later, a 55,000-capacity Wembley Stadium crowd will be in full voice in what will be the first women’s match in the home of football since the US beat Japan in the final of the London 2012 Summer Olympics.

You’ll remember that occasion where, following the final whistle confirming gold for the US, shortly after we,  and what seemed to be the entire nation, witnessed the extraordinary pictures as the Canadian flag was hoisted to those world famous Wembley rafters when we picked up that rather famous bronze medal. A defining moment, which was not only one of the greatest moments for Canadian soccer but one our entire nation will always look back on rather fondly - deep Canadian pride and tears of immense joy in equal measure.

However, that was then and Sunday will most definitely be England’s moment. No one could have dared to imagine when the English FA announced the friendly fixture, that more than a month before the kick-off, they would announce a sell-out. All 55,000 tickets having been snapped up by a crowd whipped up into a fever pitch-like frenzy for women’s soccer.The FA could have sold another 20,000-plus, but as long planned major transportation works are scheduled for London this weekend, together with the police, it was decided to cap Sunday’s attendance at that 55,000 mark.

To put this figure into a much clearer perspective, in September Wayne Rooney and his world famous cast of BPL stars could only muster a crowd of 40,000 for a Wembley international against Norway. Following yet another abysmal World Cup campaign, the appetite for the England team is reaching an all-time low.  So disastrous was their World Cup that their ranking dropped from a credible 10th to 20th in the FIFA rankings. Meanwhile, the English women’s team has climbed above even us, as they sit in seventh spot currently.

Want to run the perfect World Cup qualification campaign, Roy? Just have a look at how England set about qualifying for next summer: Played 10, won 10 - England hit the back of the net an incredible 51 times whilst only conceding a solitary goal over those 10 matches.  Only the Germans compiled the better record in qualification for a World Cup where UEFA will have eight nations competing. Seven of those places have already been decided, with the eighth and final berth to be decided when Italy and the Netherlands go at it over the dreaded two-leg playoff. The first leg will be played in the Netherlands on Saturday with the return fixture next Thursday.

England have their sights set on going at least one better next summer than how they performed at Germany 2011, where they went out rather cruelly on penalties to France in the quarterfinals - the semi-final stage, where, most surprisingly, the then-world champion Germans also came unstuck to Japan.

Sunday’s match at Wembley between England and Germany is sure to be hotly contested. Bragging rights will certainly be on the line. An English victory would catapult the profile and prestige of women’s soccer close to that probe that recently landed on a comet out in distant space.

England, though, is fully aware of the daunting task that lays ahead Sunday afternoon at Wembley Stadium against a team they are yet to beat. A pair of scoreless draws back in 2007 is the closest they have come against Germany, a six-time European and two-time World Cup champion.

If England need any further inspiration or motivation they just need to look towards one of English football's most inspiring of players and someone, come next summer, you’ll become rather familiar with in Fara Williams.

Williams, who picked up her record-breaking 130th-international cap in August’s triumph over Sweden in August, lived for over six years as a homeless person. Yes, you read that correctly -  the break-up of her family was reason why.

Football would be Williams’s saviour - as the girl who was born a stone’s throw away from Stamford Bridge and grew up a huge Chelsea fan - spent her days on the street and her nights in a variety of London’s homeless shelters throughout this awful period of her life.

If you think last season’s BPL was exciting as it came down to the wire in the final match, then in the Women’s Super League title race was even more mouth-watering. Three clubs had chance of the title going into the last game of the season. Williams’s club, Liverpool, needed both clubs above them, Chelsea and Birmingham City, to experience final day fixture blues.

And that they duly did. Chelsea lost, Birmingham drew and, thanks to a Williams penalty, Liverpool ran out 3-0 winners and with it were crowned FAWSL Champions.

England have been preparing for Sunday’s match, which falls a day shy of the 13th-anniversary of Williams’s England debut at St. George’s Park Football Centre, the national training centre where  Roy Hodgson’s squad also prepared ahead of last Saturday’s Euro 2016 qualifier against Slovenia. Opened just over two years ago at a cost of £120 million ($215 million), St. George’s is home to all 16 national teams for both men and women and is set in over 300 acres of plush English countryside, 130 miles to the north of Wembley Stadium - the very same place where, last Saturday, Williams was special guest taking in the Euro 2016 qualifier from the comfort of the Royal Box.

As Wayne Rooney was before the match on the occasion of his 100th cap, Williams was honoured on the pitch at half-time for becoming the most-capped player in women’s football for England. On Sunday afternoon, she gets chance down on the pitch along with her teammates, brimming with confidence, to finally overcome those über-successful Germans.

With 55,000 cheering England on from the Wembley stands, the match has all the ingredients to go down as one of the more magnificent moments for English football.

This in a stadium, which will always mean so very much for our women’s team and for all those who contributed to one of the most famous medals in Canadian Olympic history.

 

Noel.Butler@BellMedia.ca 
@TheSoccerNoel on Twitter