Grace Clinton is not slow. But in the milliseconds after Portugal and Barcelona forward Kika Nazareth picks up the ball in England’s half and sashays forward, Clinton is on the back foot.
The 21-year-old Manchester United midfielder is chasing, arms outstretched, vainly clawing as if attempting to catch a moving train. And, of course, Clinton does not. There is a burgeoning theory that no one can catch Nazareth — not when she is in that stride.
So, instead, Clinton watches Nazareth stroke a shot into the top right corner and ultimately earn Portugal a 1-1 draw in Friday’s opening Nations League match against England with 15 minutes of regular time remaining.
The good news for Clinton is that, for most of the 90 minutes in a rainy and rowdy Estadio Municipal de Portimao, her performance was a highlight ahead of the summer’s European championships.
Tasked with filling the No 8 void left by Georgia Stanway following the latter’s knee injury sustained last month, Clinton stepped up and displayed not only her usual technicolour attacking flair but also a clean composure that felt capable of rooting somewhere deep for this England team. She turned her defenders with ease, opened her body to receive passes, linked well with Keira Walsh and Ella Toone ahead of her, made runs when the space opened for her and put fires out when needed — including a deft intervention in England’s penalty area in the match’s early stages.
She made amends for a tendency to take an extra touch in tight spaces — only to discover a Portuguese foot in the way — with her diligence in tracking back. All of which made the image of Clinton chasing Nazareth like a shadow so beguiling.
Clinton impressed (Eric Verhoeven/Soccrates /Getty Images)
In a way, it was England in a nutshell: compelling and convincing for a large spell, before discovering another lesson they needed to heed in real time.
“It was a learning curve for Grace Clinton, dealing with a player of that calibre,” said the former Arsenal striker Ian Wright on ITV after the match. “I’m hoping she’ll learn from that, because she had a great game.”
The Lionesses have won just two of their last six matches, but for the first half-hour against Portugal, they did not appear saddled with that record. England started strong and a blistering opening act yielded a beautiful opening goal, with Lauren James spraying a ball out wide to Lucy Bronze who found Alessia Russo’s side foot on the half-volley with 15 minutes gone.
But old habits die hard. That beautiful team play distilled into a familiar sticky liquor, where England are still disturbed by teams who make them turn and run, where chances are not taken and passes are sloppy. Where “England are spared blushes” becomes an imperilling copy-and-paste job until the blushes, invariably, aren’t spared.
Many will point to Nazareth, who entered the fray at the hour mark along with Andreia Jacinto and Lucia Alves, as the key to Portugal reducing England to a cardboard box in the rain, as well as the visitors’ own profligacy. But the unravelling began at the start of the second half when a change in shape from Portugal threw England off-kilter. The hosts’ pace offered little opportunity to respond.
“Besides changing the shape, they played really quickly forward,” Sarina Wiegman told reporters afterwards. “We needed time for that. Where we controlled the first half, we didn’t keep the ball there, so they created momentum and got runs in behind all the time. That is what we wanted to get back.”
Russo scored England’s opener (Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Nazareth’s goal was a sublime piece of work. But the glaring contrast in game management in its build-up — Portugal head coach Francisco Neto opting to pivot and experiment from the bench; Wiegman choosing to stick and wait, refusing to bring on substitutes until the 84th minute — felt significant.
Where Neto’s arrivals brought more headaches and riddles England needed to solve, Portugal sussed out their opponents. Suddenly, Jess Park’s delightful cutback on the touchline failed to get passed a second defender. Walsh’s pass back to Millie Bright was snaffled. Clinton’s turn in midfield was blocked and she stood in a Nazareth-shaped hall of mirrors.
Portugal could read the next plays because they had already endured them, abetted by England’s lack of change.
“We wanted to see if we could get the shape and organisation right, which we solved,” Wiegman said when asked about the substitutions. “And there were moments, because they were waiting for a long time, we kept thinking: ‘OK, next moment, next moment (to bring on substitutes).’”
Wiegman watches on in Portimao (Gualter Fatia/Getty Images)
Wiegman’s hesitancy to make changes until late is not new, but it concerns a larger thread in her management.
Experimentation and opportunities arise regularly through circumstance rather than design, injuries to key players opening the door to new faces and formations. Clinton and Park, arguably two of England’s most exciting young talents, were only brought in on Friday courtesy of knee injuries to Lauren Hemp and Stanway and a late withdrawal from Beth Mead due to a calf injury. Loyalty can risk existing on the same coin as complacency.
In a group with Belgium and Portugal (ranked 19th and 22nd in the world respectively) and World Cup holders Spain, England needed a strong start to their Nations League campaign, with consequences for 2027 World Cup qualification and momentum for Euro 2025. Instead, in the 89th minute, Walsh stood over the ball and shrugged her shoulders in the direction of Kelly and Russo, as if to say: “What do you want me to do?”
Before they could reckon with this question, Portugal were coming at their throats again, all back heels and adrenaline; feeding off the rapid, breathless drumming of the home crowd and the smell of blood off England.
On Wednesday at Wembley, England play Spain for the first time since the 2023 World Cup final. And while the first-half performance in Portugal is a positive to remember, a far sterner test awaits if lessons are not learned.
(Top photo: Zed Jameson/PA Images via Getty Images)
