Manchester City secure league and cup double with Continental Tyres Cup final win

Manchester City secured their league and cup double by beating Birmingham City in the FA WSL Continental Tyres Cup final – but they needed extra-time to do it.

Blues keeper Ann-Katrin Berger was outstanding and a key factor in testing the WSL champions for that long – but after 105 minutes, she failed to collect a corner and England full-back Lucy Bronze headed home to win the trophy.

Manchester City manager Nick Cushing left soon after the trophy had been collected – to be with his wife, with their third child imminent.

Match winner, Bronze – Photo: Marc Atkins / Offside.

“I did say to her to send me a message if she was about to have the baby, just to say it’s happening,” he said after the match.

“No message, so that’s why I’m still here!”

Cushing and his side are in Champions League action on Thursday, taking on Zvezda Perm, while last season’s double-winners Chelsea face Wolfsburg at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

England’s Lioness Cubs also left it late in their first game of the Under-17 Women’s World Cup, with Alessia Russo scoring in injury time to take a point against North Korea.

Ellie Brazil had opened the scoring, before Hyang Sim Sung drew North Korea level, but Georgia Stanway put England ahead at the break.

North Korea had the upper hand in the second-half, and Pom Ui Kim equalised in the 67th minute from a free-kick given away by Stanway on the edge of the box.

But England never gave up and Russo’s strike from distance sets them up well to take on Nigeria on Tuesday.

*Carrie Dunn is SHOOT’s Women’s Football correspondent. Her book ‘The Roar of the Lionesses: Women’s Football in England’ is out now – available in all good bookshops.*