“I jumped up and down like a big kid!” confessed Estonia’s English head coach Keith Boanas after seeing his team drawn to face England in their five-nation qualifying group for the 2017 Women’s European Championship.
By Tony Leighton
While England coach Mark Sampson reflected calmly on a draw which pitted his team against Belgium, Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina as well as Estonia, former Charlton Athletic and Millwall manager Boanas could not hide his excitement as the prospect of going head to head with his native country.
“I’m under no illusions about how difficult it will be against England, but I’m over the moon with the draw,” said the 55-year-old coach, now in his seventh year in charge of Estonia and still frustrated at not being considered for the England job at the time of Sampson’s appointment 18 months ago.
“I’ve always hoped to get a game against England,” added Boanas. “For a country like Estonia, still developing as a women’s football nation, it’s a fantastic experience to play against teams at the elite level and England are certainly that.
“Our players will be excited and daunted at the same time about the prospect of playing England, but they’ll really look forward to it – and I can’t wait!”
England boss Sampson perfectly understands Boanas’ reaction to the draw. “It will be nice for Keith to manage a team against his native country,” he said.
“With his knowledge of our players he will aim to make it very difficult for us, but we should have enough weaponry in our armoury go get the results we want against any of the teams we will be meeting in the group.
“That’s not to say I’m expecting easy games. Belgium are an up and coming nation who’ve had some good recent results, so they’ll be difficult, and in qualifying for the last Euros we only drew in Serbia when we were expected to win – so although we’ll be favourites to qualify there can be no complacency.”
England will certainly be favourites, overwhelmingly so, but Boanas will be doing his best to make a point after having his job application to the FA overlooked.
“Somehow my application went missing,” he said. “Nobody at the FA has ever given me an explanation, but I did receive an apology from Sir Trevor Brooking.
“It still rankles, but I’m still and always will be English through and through – although when we play them in Euro qualifying I’ll be 100 per cent Estonian!”
Mark Sampson Image – tgsphoto.co.uk
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