ON TUESDAY evening, I waited for the match between England Women and Latvia to begin. I was looking forward to seeing if Ellen White would beat the all-time goal-scoring record — which she did — but I was not expecting the game to unfold the way it did. In fact, I don’t think anyone could have predicted that. 

If you missed it — England punished Latvia with 20 goals and kept a clean sheet, all in a matter of 90 minutes. With no exaggeration, I refreshed my phone every five minutes or so to check the score, and another goal would pop up on the screen.

It was an incredibly positive display from Sarina Wiegman’s side, who it seems have become forces to be reckoned with under her management, and showed how advanced our women’s team have become. Their finishing and quality on the ball was fantastic, and the sense of community and spirit within the squad itself was inspiring.

The way White’s teammates reacted to her making history proved that: nothing but respect and support for her achievements.

Fellow forward Lauren Hemp, who plays alongside the 32-year-old at both international level and for Manchester City, said: “She’s unbelievable. I’m so lucky I get to train with her day in, day out.

“She’s just a true professional and we all aspire to be like her one day. For her to break a record like that and get as many goals as she has done, it’s just unbelievable and I’m so pleased for her.”

As well as the existing players’ development, a lot of young talent has emerged this season with many making their debuts in the England squad, such as Lotte Wubben-Moy, Lauren Hemp and Ella Toone. The top standard of young players coming through means there will be plenty of options for Wiegman to pick from going into next year.

The attendance of the match at the Keepmoat stadium was a very positive 10,402. Fans gave a brilliant display in support of the team, which I imagine will only grow stronger after Tuesday night’s success. Women’s football seems to finally be getting some of the credit and coverage it deserves.

Of course, there is always room for improvement, and the bizarre 20-0 scoreline highlights the inequalities faced within the women’s game itself. The more effort put in to close the gap on these kind of one-sided score lines, the more competitive and exciting the football will be for the players and the spectators.

Wiegman admitted that the games were not challenging enough for the players, and as a result, poor for the development of both teams involved.

It is all well and good watching England succeed, but on the international stage you naturally crave opposition who play on a similar level. This will almost certainly happen during the World Cup itself, but questions have been raised over whether a pre-qualifying stage could be the solution to avoiding hugely unequal results. 

When asked about this, Wiegman said: “I think we have to look at it. Of course you want competitive games, and these are not competitive games.

“We want to develop the already well-developed countries and the countries that are not that far. In every country you want to develop the women’s game. But I don’t think it’s good that the scores now are so high.

“I know that has the attention of the federations and Uefa and Fifa, and I think that’s good, because I don’t think a 20-0 is good for the development of anyone.

“We really need some top-level games now. We’re doing very well, but we need those high-level games to really know where we stand.”

The aforementioned federations need to look at how to improve women’s football everywhere in order to make it a fairer and more equal game for everyone involved. A 20-0 result is not beneficial to the development of any team.