Women's U19s
Marley all set for Euro campaign
By Glenn Lavery - Thursday, 14 May, 2009
UEFA European Women's U19 Championship
The Finals
Minsk, Belarus
13-25 July 2009
Mo Marley will take her England side into July’s UEFA European Women’s U19 Championship with World Cup qualification firmly in her sights.
The top four teams in the tournament will automatically qualify for the U19 World Cup in 2010, (if this group of nations includes Germany it will increase to the top five teams as the Germans will host next summer’s World Cup) and Marley articulated her desire for England to be involved.
First however, England must negotiate the Euros in Belarus and with Sweden, Norway and Iceland standing in their way at the group stage, Marley knows it will not be easy.
"People can argue that we haven’t been drawn in the same group as Germany and France, but there are two strong groups there," she said. "The three teams we have to play will be very, very tough for different reasons.
"Norway and Sweden have been two of the top Women’s teams over the years, at all age levels, and the success of their Senior teams has obviously filtered down to their youth set-up, so they’ll no doubt be looking to go as far as possible in this tournament.
"I actually took my Pro Licence with Iceland’s manager and he‘s very professional in his outlook and has some fantastic footballing philosophies. Iceland are one of Women’s football’s emerging countries, so I expect them to be very well organised and difficult to beat," she continued.
"However in saying that, it is very difficult to assess the potential of the other nations, because it’s hard to say how they would have all progressed in the last year or so."
The U19 Euros will act as a pre-cursor to the UEFA European Women’s Championship which will be held in Finland in August, and although Marley believes a place in Hope Powell’s England squad may be very difficult to attain with only three months to go, she does believe that the tournament experience could prove invaluable to her young team.
"I keep telling the girls that at this age group it’s all about experience and playing at a competitive, international level. Should these girls go on to play for the Senior team that tournament game-time will be very useful to them.
"This England team is quite a new one and we only really got together in February. We’ve done exceptionally well to date, in the Ten Nation Tournament in La Manga in March, the recent Euro qualifiers and the training camp we’ve had, so things are looking good for us.
"Although they haven’t had a lot of playing time together, we’ve already got a lot of tournament experience within this squad because most of the girls would have played in the U17 or U19 World Cups last year, so that could be very beneficial to us.
"Our main priority though has to be World Cup qualification."
The UEFA European Women’s U19 Championship gets underway on 13 July with the Final being held on 25 July.
