It shows how quickly London City Lionesses have progressed that they were hugely disappointed with a narrow defeat by defending champions Manchester City. For a team that were playing second-tier football 18 months ago, their lofty ambitions of qualifying for the Champions League suddenly don't seem farfetched. London City looked like the better team for most of the afternoon at Hayes Lane but were given a harsh lesson by the visitors in how to be ruthless.
Manchester City needed goals from Khadija Shaw and Lauren Hemp against the run of play, but they dug in to win 2-1 and to continue setting the pace at the top. Those goals came after countless opportunities went begging for London City, who ended the game having had 24 shots but only six on target. The performance was enough, however, to show that London City are more than capable of competing with the WSL's elite.
The next question, is whether they can do it consistently. Find interviews and extra content on the BBC Women's Football Weekly feed London City Lionesses are a club who do things differently and, backed by US billionaire Michele Kang, they are not shy to disrupt the current order. They are an independent women's football club who have spent big in the transfer window and agreed a record-breaking shirt deal with Nike believed to be worth more than £3m a year.
They have built their own training facility in Kent and persuaded superstars such as Alexia Putellas to join in the summer. Spain international Putellas showcased her latest Ballon d'Or trophy - the third of her career - before kick-off on Sunday. London City Lionesses are clearly no minnows, but even a squad full of superstars needs time to gel.
It was for this reason that people doubted whether they were ready this season to qualify for the Champions League and break the WSL's traditional top three. But on Sunday's showing, they are not as far off as people thought. Manager Eder Maestre said the team's performances are already at the level they want but results have not always shown that and they still have work to do.
"That's why it's a very frustrating situation. We were speaking a lot about respecting the identity and it doesn't matter the team that we were facing," the Spaniard said. "The next step in that project was showing everybody that we can perform, while respecting that identity that we are trying to build on.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
