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There remains a space above England’s crest, where that star could have been. It was what Lucy Bronze had dreamt of, ever since the moment where she first played for her country and realised England’s men’s and women’s teams don’t share the same badge. The Lionesses had the chance to change that, the opportunity to add their first star, the moment to capture their 1966. But the wait will now go on. After a historic tournament where the Lionesses again made their mark back home and demonstrated the immense power of what they have created, Sarina Wiegman’s side were left with a devastatingly simple conclusion. As a first Women’s World Cup slipped out of reach, the deflating reality was that, on the day, Spain were just better. And as England’s World Cup came to a close, there was no disgrace in that – certainly not against a side as talented as Spain’s, even with their issues. At full time, as the Spanish players celebrated at one end of the pitch, head coach Jorge Vilda and his staff at the other, Wiegman and her team were a picture of unity in the centre. Even in that moment, they realised they had already managed to achieve something far greater. Wiegman told them they could still be proud, that they had given everything not just in the final but on their journey to reach it. The England manager reminded them of the challenges they had been forced to overcome and the togetherness they had shown to grow through the tournament, right until that final moment. There was pride, too, that the team had given its nation reason to love them even more. “We’re the Lionesses,” Georgia Stanway said afterwards, and that term of itself has become synonymous with their ability to inspire and transcend, to bring a country to a halt and take millions along with them. “We’re not done yet,” Stanway continued. “We’ll continue to break barriers, we’ll continue to push on." This isn’t a team who stands still. The Lionesses have created an identity and image that represents the immense change and progress, and whose performances at the World Cup will result in more. If the impact of last summer’s Euros win is anything to go by, then when the WSL returns there will be bigger attendances, more investment, more growth. Eventually, Mary Earps will get her shirt and when she does it will be another moment to symbolise the power of what the Lionesses have done. And, of course, winning the World Cup would have galvanised that further, but when a team and a manager have a purpose like the Lionesses do then it only becomes a step on the journey. “This group of players are so eager to be successful. We want to grab every moment to be better,” Wiegman said. The World Cup turned out to be the ultimate test of just that, an examination of England’s strength, not that it was ever in doubt. England won fans in a different way to last summer. From the dizzying buzz of the Euros, the Lionesses had to grind it out far away from home in Australia. Wiegman said she had “never faced so many problems” during the World Cup, an admission she made after the Lionesses scraped past Nigeria on penalties in the last-16. From the clarity and continuity of last summer’s Euros, England had anything but at the World Cup and at times were vulnerable to an early exit. Amid the shocks and unpredictability of the group stages, enough teams were succumbing to that particular theme of the World Cup to suggest that England could have quite easily become its latest victim. England’s players had set the bare minimum of the semi-finals yet the way the Lionesses played in their first two matches against Haiti and Denmark suggested even that was a stretch. Yet England managed to overturn it – they didn’t accept their fate and instead found something new, creating a new formation that breathed new life into their campaign. In the knockout stages, they showed resilience and mentality, and in the semi-finals against Australia they produced the performance of their campaign, a gutsy win in the back garden of a traditional sporting enemy, and the sort of performance that the nation back home could be proud of. The regret was they were unable to replicate it in the final, even though Wiegman insisted she had none from a final where Spain ultimately showed their class. It spared the grand inquest into England’s World Cup that would have inevitably followed a defeat to Nigeria in the last-16 or Colombia in the quarter-finals. Even without Beth Mead, Leah Williamson and Fran Kirby, England showed where they stand in the power rankings to reach the final. Defeat there is not the end of anything, rather a continuation of a journey. As for what is next, the answer is invariably more football, yet more opportunities. England will need to perform well in the inaugural Women’s Nations League and reach the final in order to guarantee qualification to next summer’s Olympics in Paris, a competition Wiegman is determined to be at after a miserable experience with the Netherlands at the ‘Covid Games’ in Tokyo in 2021. Then it’s 2025, and the defence of the Euros. As England pick themselves to go again, it will be a priority for the FA that Wiegman is there for the next World Cup. Wiegman’s contract is until 2025 and while she has made it clear that she is happy with England and the support of the team, the Dutch coach will undoubtedly attract interest from elsewhere. The FA would be wise to act swiftly. Certainly, when Wiegman is paid an annual salary of £400,000 to Gareth Southgate’s £5m, it is clear where the FA could make a statement of how much they value Wiegman and the job she has done for English football and the exponential growth of the Lionesses. In the aftermath of another World Cup final defeat, after also losing at that point with the Netherlands in 2019, Wiegman admitted that thinking four years ahead was too far away. But the reality is some players may have already had their last opportunity, particularly Bronze. The right-back had reached the semi-finals in 2015 and 2019, then had the historic high of breaking the barrier and reaching England’s first World Cup final, only for it to be followed by the crushing low of losing the ball in the build-up to Olga Carmona’s goal. It’s the cold reality of World Cup finals, where the opportunity to be champions only comes along every four years. It is exactly why it is the game’s greatest stage and why defeat on it, of being so close but remaining so far away, is the most heartbreaking of all. For Bronze and England the chance to claim the World Cup was right there, and, while the Lionesses may bask in the seismic impact of their achievements back home, it is the thought of that missing star that will remain with them for at least another four years. Read More England suffer World Cup heartache as brilliant Spain show Lionesses what’s missing A change too far? England’s last roll of the dice comes up short How not to win a World Cup: Spain, Jorge Vilda and the story of a complicated victory How not to win a World Cup: Spain, Jorge Vilda and the story of a complicated victory The vital lesson England must take to ‘continue breaking barriers’ England players ‘heartbroken’ after World Cup final defeat to Spain

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If you’ve been a social media user over the past year, chances are you’ve seen Andrew Tate popping up on your feed – and you’ve probably seen him in the news recently too. Tate, 36, his brother Tristan and two other associates have been charged in Romania with rape, human trafficking and organised crime after they were detained in December 2022. Earlier this year, the 36-year-old influencer lost his appeal against a judge's earlier decision to extend his arrest from 24 hours to 30 days, so he remains behind bars. For now. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Before his arrest, every other video seemed to feature him on TikTok, making him both one of the most ubiquitous faces on the app and one of the most controversial. But who is Andrew 'Cobra' Tate and why did he suddenly go viral last year? Here’s everything you need to know. Who is Andrew Tate? Andrew Tate/Instagram Tate, 36, is a former professional kickboxer, entrepreneur and content creator, who founded an online course in “modern wealth creation” at his own “Hustlers University”. Speaking about his personal wealth, he previously said in an interview: "I was broke for a long time. I made my first million when I was say 27 and then I had a 100 million by the time I was 31, 32 and then I became a trillionaire quite recently." There are no trillionaires on the planet (according to Forbes, Elon Musk is worth $250 billion) so that might be wishful thinking on Tate’s behalf. However, Essential Sports estimates that his net worth to be around $30 million. He enjoyed a pretty successful kickboxing career, winning world titles in two different weight divisions. He first came to prominence outside of the sporting arena while appearing on the 2016 season of Big Brother in the UK, which ended in controversial circumstances. Tate gained notoriety at the time after he was evicted from the series after a video surfaced online appearing to show him beating a woman with a belt. Speaking at the time, Tate claimed that it was part of role-play to which the woman in the video had consented. He also said he was using a felt belt. In a statement made to his Facebook, he said: ”They cut out all the sound cause she’s LAUGHING in the video. And they cut off the end of the video where she gets the belt and hits me back while we’re both laughing. What bullsh**t. It was 2012 and we were having a laugh.” He later drew criticism following comments surrounding rape which he made following the #MeToo movement. As the Metro reported, he tweeted at the time: “Sexual harassment is disgusting and inexcusable. However, a man looking at you or whistling at you or asking your name isn’t harassment. He added: “Women have been exchanging sex for opportunity for a very long time. Some did this. Weren’t abused. […] If you put yourself in a position to be raped, you must bare some responsibility. His Twitter account was suspended in 2017, and the tweets were later removed from Twitter. But in 2022, Twitter verified the account of the infamous kickboxer, which it had already banned, as the social media company appeared to ignore its own rules. Tate initially declined to comment further than disavowing two other accounts - @iron_mentality and @of_wudan - that appeared to be associated with him contacted by The Independent. However, following the publication of an article on the news site, he said: “I don’t agree with being banned, people get banned from Twitter all the time and make new profiles. I’m not inciting violence, promoting terrorism or harassing anyone. This is censorship of free speech. I’ve never had specific tweets banned or been cautioned.” MORE: Tate thinks you're a 'weak' man if you live with a woman MORE: The most controversial Cobra Tate moments we can actually talk about Why did he suddenly go viral? There isn’t one viral moment or individual clip to pinpoint his rise to viral fame, but rather it seems like part of a larger concerted effort to get his name and face out there. However, one comment which did bring a great deal of attention was his decision to call out Jake Paul for a fight. He claims he previously offered Paul £2.5million to take him on in 2020. "I don't dislike him, I understand him but I want to make something clear, I would still kick the living f*** out of Jake Paul," he told The Fellas podcast. "I'm not some washed-up UFC fighter and I'm not smaller than him, I would beat the living s*** out of him and if he wants to fight I'll fight him any day of the f****ng week. He's very smart with his 'I'm just a YouTuber angle'.” He added: "You're a full-grown man with the best coaches in the world who has dedicated years to learning how to box. The guy's not a jack*** and the fact he puts this spin on it is very smart. "I offered him $3million at the time, I don't think it's about money for him I think it's about credibility and fame. Him fighting me is a massive risk for him, he knows that. I'd love to kick the f*** out of the guy because I love to fight, that's the difference between me and everyone else he's fought," Tate continued. "I'm not some desperate guy at the end of his career who needs the money. I would dedicate my life [to training], treat him like a professional and I would destroy him like I've destroyed all of the professionals I have ever fought." Paul was asked about the possibility of fighting Tate in a press conference recently, and he replied: "I don't know who that is." Have your say in our news democracy. 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