Maren Mjelde and Maria Thorisdottir played as a centre-back pairing in all five World Cup matches, and overall were tough to come up against.

Norway breezed past Nigeria in the opening match after scoring three goals, but then came up against the hosts France who edged a 2-1 victory, before facing Ji So-Yun's South Korea side and running away with a 2-1 win. The Norwegians then faced Australia and progressed to the quarter-finals when they beat them in a nervy penalty shoot-out.

However, England carved open the disciplined Norwegian defence with three clinical finishes to send the Scandinavians home sooner than they had hoped.

The defenders told the official Chelsea website their thoughts after the game at Le 'Havre's Stade Oceane.

'It's hard, England had a great game, but at the same time, I felt like we played well as well.

'But we didn't score and to win a game you have to score – they scored three and it's not good enough from us,' Thorisdottir said.

'It's hard, I don't really know how to describe it, tough losing because suddenly you're out of the tournament and going home tomorrow – that wasn't what I was hoping for but today they were more clinical than us in both boxes,' said Mjelde.

England opened the scoring after three minutes when Jill Scott tapped in from close range, yet the Blues defenders did not let that faze them and admitted that their team should have finished the chances that were presented to them.

'They got a really good start and influenced the game, but still, we had enough time to fix that I think. We came out into the second half and created some chances, I think their goalkeeper did well and kept them in it when we had good chances,' said Mjelde.

'I'm not sure the first goal made a difference because that was so early in the game, I wasn't worried and I thought we played our game plan after the goal, we were relaxed, but they were a better team today,' Thorisdottir added.

The Scandinavians played 120 minutes of football and eventually won 4-1 on penalties against a strong Australian side to get to the quarter-final spot, and although they had one more rest day than England, fatigue may have played its part. Thorisdottir said: 'You could see that we were more fatigued than England, they were fit today.

'We gave it our all, and we said to ourselves that we have to give it our all and be proud of that, and I think we did that today.'

Mjelde also commented: 'England just looked a bit sharper than us, but we gave it our all and we just need to be proud of that.'

You will be able to watch Chelsea Women’s World Cup stars at Kingsmeadow next season – register your interest for a 2019/20 season ticket here.