John Griffiths’ first game as Head Coach at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan was nothing short of thrilling. His Young Lionesses played on arguably their most difficult fixture in the group against Korea DPR, who went on to win the tournament in 2008 after beating England 2-1 in the semi-finals.
England redeemed a point via Alessia Russo’s stunning late strike, despite being in the lead twice in the game. Following the match, John Griffith’s addressed the loss of momentum in the second half, noting that England usually only play 80 minutes in Europe, and talked about what this means for the upcoming games in Group C.
SK: In the last twenty minutes the English team struggled, do you think that this is a problem mentally or physically?
JG: Physically they were fine as the centre forwards were able to create and finish a chance in 90+4 minutes, it was the focus and movement of the Koreans that caused us a problem.
SK:You’re playing Nigeria next, what do you expect from this and the group that includes Brazil?
JG: We face three very different teams in this group, the Nigerians will have pace and power and the Brazilians are very technical. We have a combination of all of those things, but it was a different test today the Koreans were very tactical and very clever.
The important thing for us is to prepare for the next game. We’ve got a good platform now going into the two games with a point, I always felt like we were going to score goals in this tournament.
SK:What did you say to the girls at half time to encourage them into the second half?
JG: The important thing at half time was to make sure that the back four were compact, we knew would have to defend around the penalty box. I’ll have to look again at the free kick to see what the circumstances around that were.
SK:You went into the first half ferociously, do you think that this intensity impacted on the second half and explains conceding the goals?
JG: I think we were okay until the free kick and that’s when the momentum swung a little bit, we were in control of the game until then, but they started to make substitutions and move more cleverly which is why we made the substitution of the two central midfielders. In the last 5 or 6 minutes once we made the changes we went back to the game plan.
They’re sixteen years of age, they’ll make mistakes as they’re trying to figure out momentum on the world stage, it’s a lot for them but they’ve learned their lessons from today.
SK: Before the tournament you said the aim is to develop a brand of football throughout the age groups. Tonight do you think that the girls displayed that brand of football?
JG: We’re trying to play a certain way and they did that well tonight for the majority of the game and it’s an education programme for them. The most important thing is recognising what they’re trying to achieve and sticking to it, then managing the chaos in amongst it as they go a goal down. We knew the Korean goalkeeper would kill the space at the front post, and that’s exactly what she did in the 94th minute so we knew where to shoot and it paid off.
The Young Lionesses will play their next game against Nigeria at the Prince Mohammed International Stadium in Zarqa, Jordan at 2pm (GMT).
