Captain Steph Houghton insists that England will head into their Euro 17 qualifiers against Belgium and Bosnia & Herzegovina with the same attitude they showed against the world’s top three teams at the SheBelieves Cup in America.
By Tony Leighton
The Belgians and Bosnians – respectively placed 28th and 62nd in Fifa’s world rankings – are minnows compared to the USA, Germany and France, who fourth-ranked England faced at last month’s SheBelieves tournament.
But as Houghton looked ahead to facing Belgium on Friday at Rotherham and Tuesday’s away game against Bosnia, the Manchester City central defender said: “We’ll give both sides the respect we showed the very top teams.
“Belgium are top of our group table at the moment and they’ve had some great results of late, and we know that Bosnia are tough opponents after we found it hard to break them down when we played them at Bristol in November.”
Against a Bosnia team that parked a flotilla of buses on a rain-sodden Bristol City pitch, England had to settle for a hard-earned 1-0 victory despite totally dominating a game that was played almost exclusively in their opponents half.
Meanwhile Belgium have already played Bosnia twice in the group, winning 6-0 at home and 5-0 away, and since then have run up impressive victories over both Denmark (2-1) and Russia (5-0) at last month’s Algarve Cup in Portugal.
“Belgium will probably be our toughest opponents in the group,” said Houghton, “and we’ll have to perform at our highest level to get the result we want – and that result is a win that will take us ahead of them to the top of the table.
“If we can achieve that and then complete the double over Bosnia next week that will put us hopefully on the way to the Euro finals in Holland next year. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, we’ve got to take it one game at a time.”
One game at a time it may be, but after reaching last year’s World Cup finals with a 100 per cent qualifying record – and now having won their first two Euro 17 qualifiers – England are hot favourites to advance to the finals.
What’s more, Houghton & Co are not only expected to reach the finals but, after winning bronze at the World Cup, there will be huge expectation that they can come back from the Netherlands with another medal – perhaps gold.
Head coach Mark Sampson has stated the aim is to win the Euros and Houghton added: “Winning a World Cup bronze was fantastic, but we would obviously love to win a Euro gold. If and when we get to the finals, that will be the objective.”
Photos – Action Images
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