By Louise Taylor in Edmonton/The Guardian

It was the moment Siobhan Chamberlain had been anticipating for what seemed like an eternity but was starting to fear might never happen. When a member of England’s medical staff tending the prone Karen Bardsley started rotating his hands, the Arsenal goalkeeper could hardly believe it. The second half of the Lionesses’ 2-1 World Cup quarter-final win against Canada on Sunday had barely begun and Chamberlain knew her big chance had finally arrived.
That universal signal that a substitute is required had the 31-year-old leaping off the bench and nearly four weeks into her third World Cup finals, making her first appearance in international football’s showpiece tournament.
As a good friend of Bardsley, Chamberlain was concerned about the allergic reaction which caused the first-choice England goalkeeper’s eyes to swell up alarmingly, seriously impairing her vision. Yet with a semi-final place at stake and a hostile 54,000-strong crowd to perform in front of at a packed BC Place stadium she could afford to think solely of herself.
An assured display from Mark Sampson’s second-choice goalkeeper has left Chamberlain in strong contention to face Japan in Edmonton on Wednesday night as Bardsley struggles to fully recover.
Happily the latter was deemed well enough to fly to Edmonton with Sampson’s squad yesterday but her condition had been sufficiently serious to necessitate a post-match trip to hospital where a specialist examined her.
“There’s still time for Bards to fully recover,” says Chamberlain, “but, as a keeper, you’ve always got to be ready regardless and it will be the same if I’m needed against Japan.
“They’re an excellent side, very technical, they’re the World Cup holders and they’ve done well in this tournament. We had a couple of their players at Arsenal last year in Yukari Kinga and Shinobu Ohno and they were both fantastic. It should be an exciting game.”