England's Ellen White keen to avenge France World Cup defeat

Ellen White says she is still "haunted" by England's 2011 Women's World Cup defeat to France ahead of next week’s Group F opener between the two sides at Canada 2015.

England were three minutes away from reaching the World Cup semi-finals for the first time in their history before a France equaliser led to an agonising 4-3 penalty shoot-out defeat.

And 51-cap Notts County Ladies striker White admits senior members of the squad are still hurting from that loss and will be looking for revenge when they meet France in Moncton on Tuesday.

“I think I’m still a little haunted from the France game in the last World Cup,” White told Sky Sports.

“It was so disappointing because we were so close. We were only minutes away from going through and to lose on penalties was really disappointing.

“But for this World Cup we’ve got a fantastic squad and a slightly younger group of players. We’ve got great depth and great experience at the same time and we want to do as well as any other team has done in an England shirt in terms of women’s football.

“We’ll just take each game as it comes but it’s a big game to start with and we’ll be looking to get revenge on them too.

"A good result could potentially put us in a really good position going into the next two games. It’s a great game to look forward to against one of the best teams in the world to start our World Cup campaign."

Almost a third of people in the New Brunswick city of Moncton speak French, but White is not fazed by playing in front of a crowd that will be firmly behind England’s opponents.

"Yes the crowd will be supporting them but we’ve got to try and use that to our advantage," she said.

"When I used to play for Arsenal, we used to get quite a lot of hostile environments when we played in the Champions League.

"So quite a lot of us have experienced that and can draw upon that. It's going to be a fantastic atmosphere. Who wouldn't be up for that game?"