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Phil Neville has revealed England’s World Cup preparations went awry late last year before being put back on track thanks to a “truth and honesty” session in the Arabian desert.

As the Lionesses’ manager finalised plans for Tuesday night’s semi-final against the USA he acknowledged that a chastening defeat against Sweden in Rotherham last November “ruined Christmas” for him.

That 2-0 reverse left Neville ripping up and redrafting his blueprint for a January training camp in Qatar, with on-pitch workouts swapped for soul-baring evenings in Doha and the surrounding desert.

The five-star hotels lining the Qatari capital’s Gulf shoreline are well known for hosting high-stakes political negotiations but Neville opted to remove his players temporarily from England’s luxury beachside base as politeness and pleasantries were briefly replaced by somewhat harsher home truths.

“We had a real big moment when we got beaten by Sweden,” Neville said. “My whole Christmas was ruined by that game. It wasn’t losing, it was the manner of the defeat. So we took the players to Qatar and we literally transported them into the desert for a meal.

“We put everything on the table. If we didn’t like each other, if there were friendship groups, or whatever, we stripped it bare and laid it on the table. It was a throwback to one of those old-fashioned days when you just sit down, have an honest conversation and move on.

“There were a lot of honest conversations in Qatar and we came out of that camp and won the SheBelieves tournament in America. From then on we’ve been like a steam train.”

England’s women’s footballers have captured the hearts of the nation to such an extent that their World Cup semi-final against USA on Tuesday night will be the most watched TV event of the year, Phil Neville has predicted.

Nearly eight million people watched the team’s quarter-final victory against Norway but Neville, the England manager, expects 10 to 12 million to watch the biggest game in the history of England women’s football.

That would exceed the season finale of the police corruption drama Line of Duty, which had 9.6 million viewers in June – the biggest overnight TV rating of the year so far.

“It’s our biggest strength as a nation that we come together as a country in these moments,” said Neville. “I heard 7.9 million saw the Norway game but we’ll have 10 to 12 million watching against the US. We have gathered momentum on and off the pitch and now the players have got to deliver.

England’s women have never reached a final of a major competition before and they will be underdogs against the US, who are the reigning World Cup holders and ranked No 1 in the world. However Neville believes that his team, which reached the semi-finals of this competition four years ago as well as the last four of the European championships in 2017, have the ability and mentality to step up.

“I want my players to realise that we are so close and we have to deliver,” he added. “There is no upside to defeat. Losing in a semi-final would mean nothing to me. Every single meeting, every single training session, every five-a-side we’ve had we’ve spoken about winning. Winning is the most important thing. It’s about winning, that’s the mentality we’ve brought in. My players now have to become serial winners. We’ve done semi-finals – we have to make the next step.”

Burgundy&GoldForever wrote:The U.S. team is going to need someone other than Megan Rapinoe to step up or they won't be seeing the Finals.

England’s wingers, Ellen White, Fran Kirby, the Lionesses’ speed, a resilient defence … the way the United States side talk about their opponents for Tuesday’s semi‑final in Lyon, you could be forgiven for thinking Phil Neville’s side are the world champions rather than the team from across the Atlantic.

For Alyssa Naeher, the US goalkeeper, concerns are understandably centred on White, the tournament’s joint-top scorer. Their game three months ago against England in the SheBelieves Cup will provide a valuable blueprint. The teams drew 2-2 but England won the competition. Naeher said: “Ellen White is in great form and scoring goals and we’ll move on to shift our focus and figure out a gameplan to stop that. We played them back in March so we’ll go back and look at that and we’ve watched a few of their games throughout this tournament. It’s going to be another hard-fought game.”

Alex Morgan, one of those tied with White in the scorers’ chart on five goals, believes the danger does not stop with England’s in-form striker. “Ellen White is obviously coming into this next game really confident,” she said. “She has gained that starting spot and that’s huge. We have to look at her because of the goals she is scoring. We also know we have to look at the wingers and the speed that they have, and the 10 spot, looking at [Fran] Kirby. They have a lot of talent on the team.”

Morgan will be trying to break down the meanest defence left in the tournament – “stingy” is how Becky Sauerbrunn describes it – but the she knows England are on the up.

“They obviously dominated against Norway, it was a great game for them so we were watching pretty closely knowing that we could very well face them. Now it’s all about recovering for them. They’ve really evolved their game over the last couple of years and we’ve been fortunate enough to play them every single year [at the SheBelieves Cup], so I think we’ll see something that we’ve seen quite a bit of, but now it’s who is going to show up to play.” Morgan, though, despite a tough schedule, “feels good”. “Playing this many 90-minute matches and playing in the last group, meaning we had the least amount of rest, is not ideal. But we feel great and we will be ready,” she said.

The USA defender Abby Dahlkemper agrees that Neville’s side have a number of strong features to their play. “England are a really good side,” she said. “They play well and it will be a good match-up. They’re athletic and tactically flexible. Their wingers are very pacy and they like to attack from their full-backs as well. We have to be aware of that and the threat. We have to be good in transition on Tuesday.”