Women's World Cup: England manager Phil Neville made massive oversight in ignoring Karen Carney

England left France with one fewer decoration than they arrived with. In 2015, they were the Women's World Cup bronze medallists. In 2019, they hoped for more, and fell short.

The third-place play-off against Sweden was not an impressive showcase for the tournament or for England's ability in general, with hideous defensive mistakes riddling their first-half performance and condemning them to defeat. Rather than that, however, the match should be remembered as the final international appearance of Karen Carney, the winger who announced her retirement from football.

Carney deserved better than a place on the bench, and she deserved better than the last 16 minutes as the Lionesses chased the game; she would have brought more creativity than Jade Moore, and more wisdom than Fran Kirby.

A World Cup is not the place for sentimentality; but it is certainly the place where the nation's best-ever players should shine. Her service to her nation should have been marked as she hung up her boots; perhaps she could have led the team out, even if she didn't wear the captain's armband. Instead, her career will be celebrated with a fixture at some unspecified date in the future.

The forward made her international debut as a teenager 14 years ago - and scored a goal along with it. Since then, she has continued to stun crowds and inspire her colleagues with her technique, her thinking, and of course her goals. She notched two in England's bronze medal-winning campaign in Canada in 2015, one a sweet nutmeg against Colombia.

"This is the sharpest Karen Carney the world has seen in a long, long time,” enthused then-coach Mark Sampson, describing her as “a wizard with a football”.

“I'm delighted for Karen,” added then-assistant coach Marieanne Spacey. “She'd be the first to say it's all about the teamwork, but you like those little moments that light up the game – and she's more than capable of doing that.”

That is exactly what Carney has brought to every side in which she has played, and she should have had more of a chance in France, even at the age of 31 - she remained the most skilful and thoughtful player at Phil Neville's disposal. To fail to select her in any of the knock-out matches seems a massive oversight.

Neville - and others - used the word "pioneer" to refer to her. It is a word that perhaps in some ways overlooks the century of contributions women made to the progress of the game before Carney was even born - but certainly she is a pioneer who has blazed a trail for the current generation of professionals.

Those girls who make their international debuts now won't know about the struggle of balancing a full-time job with top-flight football, nor the struggle for money or media coverage in the same way as those women who packed up their bags and travelled the world in their efforts to carve out a footballing career. That's what Carney did, spending time in Chicago with the Red Stars, but also gracing the domestic league in its pre- and post-Women's Super League incarnations, creating a Hall of Fame legacy at hometown club Birmingham, winning the quadruple with Arsenal, and more recently helping Chelsea to their domestic double in 2018.

She bade farewell to a fine playing career on the final weekend of her third World Cup, with the eyes of a nation on her, and she left knowing she will always have the respect and the gratitude of fans and team-mates alike.