Women's World Cup: Phil Neville 'committed' to England job

Phil Neville is "committed" to leading England to their home Euro 2021 event, says Baroness Campbell, the FA's head of women's football.

They lost 2-1 to the United States in Tuesday's Women's World Cup semi-final in Lyon, their third major tournament last-four exit in a row.

Neville will also be Team GB manager in next year's Tokyo Olympics.

"Phil was talking to me this morning about Tokyo, and the home Euros and what he wanted to do," said Campbell.

"He has signed up to a three-year journey, and he seems committed to it. We would love for him to do it.

"He is a great communicator. One of the reasons I was very excited about him was that he is a student of the game, and is constantly wanting to learn. His own open-mindedness makes him a very authentic leader."

Former Manchester United and England defender Neville took charge of the Lionesses in 2018, his first full-time managerial job.

He said his players and staff "woke up with a feeling of emptiness" on Wednesday morning.

"There is massive disappointment as we came to win the competition, we weren't shy about it," said Neville.

"You wake up the next day and the burning desire is gone because you can't achieve what you want to."

England now face Sweden and the Netherlands in the third-place play-off in Nice on Saturday.

"We have given ourselves time to mope around, 24 hours," said Neville. "Tomorrow [Thursday] when we wake up, full steam ahead. We want to finish on a high.

"We want six wins and one defeat, that's some record at a World Cup."

England trailed twice, to Christen Press and Alex Morgan headers, with Ellen White equalising in between. White had a goal disallowed by the video assistant referee for offside and Steph Houghton had an 84th-minute penalty saved before Millie Bright's late red card.

"I didn't think it wasn't our time [to go out]," said Neville. "When the penalty was given I turned to Mark Mason, my goalkeeping coach, and said we're going to win this.

"After the sending off, I thought it would be difficult. They started to run the ball into the corner, their game management was world class."

Neville said the semi-final was an "unbelievable occasion to be involved in".

He added: "I knew it would be one of those games that you will remember for the rest of your lives - 54,000 in the stadium was phenomenal. Both sets of supporters were incredible and both sets of players. It was like a boxing match when we met at the SheBelieves Cup [a 2-2 draw in March] and it was the same yesterday.

"It was just down to which team had that extra bit of quality when it mattered. We had our chances and we didn't take them."

Neville was happy the Lionesses played a part in record-breaking TV viewing figures. The game was the most-watched television programme of the year so far in the UK - with a peak audience of 11.7 million.

"We had a couple of objectives on and off the field," he said.

"Off the field we wanted to make our players visible and we have done that. Doing media every day and the way we launched the squad [with celebrities revealing the players], that was a brave thing to do and it's worked.

"The nation has fallen in love with the 23 players and that makes me proud. We have put in an immense amount of funding, investment and time into making women's football the best."

BBC Sport has launched #ChangeTheGame this summer to showcase female athletes in a way they never have been before. Through more live women's sport available to watch across the BBC this summer, complemented by our journalism, we are aiming to turn up the volume on women's sport and alter perceptions. Find out more here.