Cardiff Met’s Sophie Scherschel has been talking to WPWL reporter Robert Clement, ahead of the start of their UEFA Women’s Champions League campaign, which begins in Poland today.
With Cardiff Metropolitan having retained the Welsh Premier Women’s League title for a second consecutive season, Sophie Scherschel is confident that the Archers are still a force to be reckoned with:
“It’s our second consecutive year; the third time in four years being champions of this league, and we reflect on the season as a good one. We obviously set targets at the beginning of the year, and we hoped for more after last season, having won the domestic treble and we’re happy to have won the league title in the most important competition in our opinion, meaning that we can represent Wales in the Champion’s League for another year”.
The former Surrey Counties player added: “In our penultimate home fixture, we recorded our best result with a 19-0 outcome against Newcastle Emlyn. That was an important game for us with the league coming to an end, and we knew that goal difference might play a factor in the outcome, so we thought that we needed to get as many goals as we can in that game”.
“Erin Murray did well to get seven; quite an achievement to win 7-0 in any game is good, but for one player to score seven, yes it’s a great achievement”.
She then praised striker Eleanor Sargent, with her being one of the prominent players: “Eleanor has been out top goalscorer this season and well deserved; playing on the wing is not always easy, but she sets up as many as she scores, with her getting 17 which were very valuable to us’.
“I think the highlight of the season just has to be winning the title really. We had some disappointment losing games that we didn’t want to lose in the cups, so regaining the title was definitely the highlight, and I think representing Wales in the summer will definitely the biggest achievement”.
“Twelve months ago we went to Portugal and we retuned home with a victory, and it feels like a long time ago now, but we went out there, and trained hard. We lost the first two games unfortunately, the first one was quite close against ASA Tel Aviv and it could easily have gone the other way”.
“The last game thought, to beat the host team Athletico Ouriense who in the end qualified as group winners, that obviously shows the gap between Wales and the other European nations isn’t as big as we first thought, so it definitely gives us hope moving forward into this Champions League, with our aim to better that”.
She added: “I feel quite honoured to have represented Cardiff Metropolitan in both of our Champions League campaigns, playing in six games and we feel as a side privileged to be able to represent Wales at such a high level, and it’s the pinnacle which we worked hard to achieve and just hope that we can achieve more this time, compared to previous ones”.
Source – welshpremier.co.uk
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