Just before England headed out to train at the very fine Willem II Stadium in Tilburg, we grabbed a chinwag with skipper Steph Houghton…
It’s a bit ‘brass monkeys’ out here in the south of the Netherlands but under a beautiful blue sky an upbeat bunch of England players and staff – happy to welcome boss and proud new dad Mark Sampson back into the frey after he flew in Monday morning from paternity leave – headed out onto a perfect looking pitch to get a feel for the smart and compact stadium they will play in on Tuesday evening. If I told you there was a brief blasting out of a Christmas song (and some singing along) at the start of the warm-up, I wouldn’t be lying!
She’s done zillions of interviews across a very busy and successful season, but Steph Houghton was as cheery as ever (thanks Skip!), as we took a few minutes before training started, to look ahead to the team’s final game of the year.
SK: So, you know a bit about some of the Dutch players, don’t you?
SH: Yeah, obviously there’s a team mate of mine, Tessel Middag. She’s a fantastic player that hasn’t featured as much as she probably would have wanted to this season but I really feel as though she is going to be a top player. So that’s one player, from our point of view, that we will have to stop. And also the likes of Van de Donk and Van der Sanden, who we play against in the WSL, we know they’re real threats to us, so it’s going to be an interesting game and a tough one, at that.
SK: The talk from the coaching staff is that this is a trial run for next summer, testing out the environs etc, does it feel like that now that you’re in the Netherlands?
SH: Yeah. It’s nice to be here and after the group has been drawn, you get excited that in six months we’re going to be here and starting the Euros. To come here and play in one of the venues we’re going to be playing in (v Portugal, 27 July), it’s a great test for us and hopefully there’ll be a good crowd as well.
SK: Netherlands have some strong forward players, particularly Vivianne Miedema, have you looked out how they play or just concentrated on how you will play?
SH: I think for us, especially over the last few games, we’ve been working on a system that works for all of our players and I really feel as though the way that we’re playing a the moment – we’re getting the ball down a lot more, it’s benefitting the players who like the ball at their feet – it’s creating a lot of problems for other teams. So we’ll look at them and respect them at the same time and for a defender it’s great to have those challenges against top forwards.
SK: For you personally (and your City team mates), it’s nine games unbeaten with England and you’ve gone all season effectively unbeaten, you must just feel like you do NOT want to lose?
SH: When you say stats like that, it’s a case of yeah we really want to end this season on a high. The only games we lost were against USA and Germany and we were so close to getting a result in those ones, so I think as a team we want to get to the end of 2016 continuing to be unbeaten, to make it ten games. And at my club we’ve had a fantastic season and I couldn’t have wished for anything else. I know that we’ve got winners in this side and no doubt when tomorrow comes we’ll want to win as well.
SK: So you basically want to end 2016 on a high?
SH: Yes and I think we deserve that because we’ve put in so much hard work over this season and we’ve improved a lot both on and off the pitch. It’s a credit to everyone who has played their part, the staff as well. That’s the idea, to come here, experience this, experience the crowd and be consistent with our winning mentality.
SK: The Dutch lost to Belgium 3-2 a few days ago, does that surprise you, given that the Netherlands are higher (12th to Belgium’s 26th) in the rankings?
SH: I think the rankings nowadays don’t really mean too much. We played Belgium recently and they’re a very tough team and they caused us some problems and we were fortunate to go and have a very good performance against them over there and at home we drew 1-1. So in women’s football now there’s a great tendency to predict that because you’re higher ranked you’re gonna win but that’s not necessarily the case and so for us to experience that against Holland on Tuesday and when we play in the Euros we know that we can’t be just expected to win.
SK: Are you sick of the sight of some of your team mates now and looking forward to a break?
SH: Yeah seeing some of them every single day of the year [laughs]…but that’s what it is, it’s your job and I think we’ve done really well to cope with the amount of pressure we’ve been under over the past few months, especially at Man City and to come away unbeaten, with the double and to be into the quarter finals of the Champions League has been fantastic. The way that we’ve handled ourselves on and off the pitch has been unbelievable. But I think all of the girls, after a win on Tuesday [smiles], will look forward to a nice break.
SK: You will have a few weeks break and then it’s the big push towards the summer?
SH: We’re looking forward to a break but I know it’s going to so quickly and then it’ll be a case of getting yourself fit again, getting back into the best shape but for now it’s about peaking at the right time and as an international footballer you want to be peaking for the European competition. We have to handle ourselves well because it’s going to be a long 18 months, at this point next year we’ll have another 6 months to go so we’ll have to prepare that and hopefully we will get looked after both at club and country.
SK: What was your reaction to the UWCL draw?
SH: Well we were training and had just had a training match and came off to hear it was Fortuna. A lot of the girls were thinking that we’d get Lyon or Wolfsburg and I think the gaffer wanted that one too. We knew that it was going to be a tough team at this stage of a hard competition and to go back to Denmark (and we liked Denmark, so it’ll be nice to go back) is exciting.
Whichever side of the draw we were on, be it Munich’s side or Wolfsburg’s side we knew it was going to be tough but like I say, it’s exciting and something to look forward to and work hard for!
SK: It’s chilly, will it be gloves and long sleeves tomorrow night?
SH: Not for me, no. I think you’ll probably see all the Northerners with short sleeves on. I’d like to think so!
No pressure girls (to brave the cold, that is!). Ha ha!
Netherlands v England
Koning Willem II Stadion, Tilburg
Women’s Friendly International
6pm (GMT), Tuesday 29 November
WATCH LIVE ON BBC RED BUTTON OR BBC ONLINE
