Liverpool scalp renews belief for Sheffield United Women

Maddy Cusack of Sheffield Unitedd during the FA Women's Championship game at the Olympic Legacy Park, Sheffield. (Picture: Harry Marshall/Sportimage)

Sheffield United’s Maddy Cusack says the reaction to her goal on Sunday, which knocked Liverpool out the Women’s League Cup, demonstrates the growth in interest in women’s football.

Following Sheffield United Women’s late 3-2 win against Liverpool on Sunday, a video of Cusack’s goal has been viewed 18,000 times on the Sheffield United twitter page and was posted to the club’s 260,000 followers. Such enthusiasm comes on the back of a successful women’s World Cup which was watched by a global audience of one billion while 28.1 million people watched the England Lionesses on television.

Cusack, 23 – who joined United from Championship rivals Leicester City in January – said: “My goal on Sunday must’ve been watched by around 20,000 people when it was posted on social media. People are actually interested and seeing it as football now rather than women’s football, which is great.”

Tensions were high when United trailed Liverpool in the 90th minute, but Cusack’s equaliser and Jade Pennock’s winning goal in the 94th minute were enough to see the women’s Championship team knock Super League side Liverpool out of the cup.

Maddy Cusack of Sheffield Unitedd celebrates Katie Wilkinson's penalty during the The FA Women's Championship game with Aston Villa at Boldmere St. Michaels. (Picture: Harry Marshall/Sportimage)

“It was obviously fantastic getting us level again,” said Cusack, who represented the Lionesses at Under-19s level. “We all had the belief we could win so it was great that we could get level and then get the third goal.

“Obviously it was disappointing to go down, especially when it was 1-0 because I thought we did well. We had a lot of chances ourselves that we probably should have put away so it was disappointing to be on the back foot.

“We’ve been in those situations before and we always do really well in the game. We always had the belief that we could get the win.”

United’s aim this season is to win promotion to the Women’s Super League, with the win against Liverpool proving they can compete at that level.

Maddy Cusack of Sheffield United challenges Kerri Welsh of Aston Villa. (Picture: Harry Marshall/Sportimage)

Carla Ward’s side are sixth in the early second-tier table, six points behind leaders Aston Villa.

“After Sunday, especially beating a team like that in the league above, everyone’s on a high,” said Cusack, “But we’re very focused on the fact that the big goal is to get promoted so we’re just focusing on the next game.”