England Women start the World Cup campaign with a nervous victory against Scotland

England Women started their 2019 World Cup campaign with a 2-1 victory over Scotland in Group D.

England was awarded a penalty in the 14th minute for Nikita Parris, sentenced after a VAR criticism, to break the stalemate in Nice after Fran Kirby's center hit Nicola Docherty's arm.

Ellen White, whose goal was previously declared offside, doubled England's advantage by beating goalkeeper Lee Alexander, goalkeeper from Scotland, just before half-time, and Phil Neville's team seemed want to reach the bar of the three points.

Claire Emslie scored a goal back for Scotland after a sloppy game from English captain Steph Houghton and the Lionesses were under considerable pressure in a tense 10-minute final.

However, England managed to retain the ardent team from Scotland to maintain its slight lead and finish first in Group D with Argentina and Japan preparing for their opening match on Monday night.

England will then face Argentina on Friday night in Le Havre, while Scotland will face Japan in Rennes earlier on the same day.

The English coach, Neville, urged his players to be "fiercer" after the victory.

"I am satisfied with the result. The first match is always the most difficult. We set standards and players must continue to respect them, "he told BBC Sport.

"We can not go below these standards and if we do, we get similar performance to the second half. We must be relentless.

"We want to be here for the next 27 days. I am the biggest problem, I must continue to apply these standards. It starts with me, we should have done better.

"The only concern I had was to want us to pbad the ball. At 2-0, we thought it would be easy in the second half, it was a lesson that every match was going to be tough. "

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