Coach Griffiths takes the positives from the Young Lionesses first U-17 World Cup since 200
England exits the U-17 Women’s World Cup, beaten 3-0 by Japan. Head Coach John Griffiths was keen to focus on the positives from England’s first U-17 World Cup since 2008, opening up the post match conference by saying “First of all I want to say congratulations to Japan, they’re a good, honest football team; I’d also like to say thank you to FIFA and Jordan for the competition, it’s been a fantastic experience for our players,”
“My staff and players have been outstanding over the past 12-18 months, as I said we’re very new to the world stage. From tonight there are certainly some lessons that we have to learn and learn quickly but what I would like to say is that we’ve conducted ourselves over 16 international games this year in Europe and in World football, playing European Champions Germany and, in my opinion this year’s World Champions, Japan. We’ve competed unbelievably well; we are a new nation to this level of football, so I’m incredibly proud of what our group has done this year.”
Q: Do you think that Japan’s early goal affected the performance of the team?
JG: I think the first goal did make it difficult for us and then conceding just before half time made it tremendously difficult for us. It was a mountain to climb after that, they’re the world champions and as they move through the tournament it will take quite the team to stop them.
Q: Do you feel like you were unprepared or scared of Japan?
JG: No, not really. There’s no fear. Sometimes you have to hold your hands up and say you were beaten by a better and more mature nation and that’s how we’ll look at it. We’ve got a lot to learn from it and that’s great. As they grow into more senior football, it’s important that they learn that lesson.
Q: You spoke about the future of the girls, do you have any plans for them to keep playing to a professional level?
JG: It’s really important that international and domestic football move closer together to structure a programme around the players, the clubs have been very good with us this year and we need to keep improving that relationship. You can look back at the 2008 squad that went to New Zealand, a lot of those players went on to win a bronze medal in Canada eight years later. I fully anticipate a lot of this group moving into Mark Sampson’s senior group in the next few years, when we’re looking to win the World Cup in 2023.
The most important thing is that they keep playing at this level, keep playing against USA, Japan, France, Germany – they only get better the more they play against better opponents.
Q: What can you learn from Japan?
JG: I think they have a brand of football that they stick right throughout their age groups which is important. We’re just discovering ours, so we’re trying to find the right way to play.
I think Japan invest a lot into their programmes, they have a big population side, strong leagues and they’re the things we need to learn from. We’re doing incredibly well considering the playing population that we have and the access to the players that we get.
Q: Can you speak about your game plan today?
JG: It’s very difficult when you play against a nation that play as well as Japan, when the first goal went in nothing changed and nothing changed when the second went in. We stuck to the game plan until we had to change it which was when we started losing time and pushed two through the middle and blocked off their two midfielders. That seemed to work and we gathered momentum and had a couple of opportunities. We said after half time that the next goal would be important and unfortunately Japan got that next goal, that killed the game.
Q: The girls are all playing in clubs, some at WPL and some WSL, how do you think their return will be following a gruelling international experience here?
JG: To play five games in 22 days is hard, but it will only stand them in better stead, they’re all in good shape and we’ve not picked up any major injuries. What they’ll take back is a monumental experience, particularly those in WSL 1 and competing in Champions League because this is the standard they’re going to come up against. It’s really, really important that they take the lessons from this experience because the reality is they’re in the top eight in the world and that’s remarkable. When we started out this year we played in the Nordic Cup in Europe and they finished bottom of the whole group, which was a shock to all of us because of the level of talent in the group, but the learning they’ve done in the past 12 months has been immense, in both Europe and the World Stage.
When the programme first started it was full time in Loughborough but now we’re club based, we’re having to invest wherever we can. The more we can get English girls playing in these leagues, the wider the talent pool for England to select from the WPL, WSL 1 and 2.
Q: Have you had or will you be having discussions with Mo Marley about some of the girls moving up into the next level of international football?
JG: I have absolutely no doubt that Mo Marley has watched our games. Traditionally we played in a dual age band but now we are the only team here to use a single age band system, we can pick from players born in 2001 but the problem is other players don’t get that international experience. We’re trying to be unique with our programme, certainly over the last few years. We’ve qualified for three major finals in two years, whereas previously we hadn’t in eight, nine years. We’re investing in widening the talent pool, they might come now or they might come later but what’s important is that Mo has a really broad group to select from as they move forward into senior potentials.
My job is to deal with development, even with Mo’s U20 it’s still about developing talent until they get in Mark’s [Sampson] group where it’s about competing for major honours. Right now it’s about a blend of competition and development. I feel that at the moment we’ve got that absolutely spot on.
When the Young Lionesses return from international duty many of them will finish their season in the FA Women’s Super League, while for some the WPL Season is just underway. Georgia Stanway and Man City will be competing in the Champions League.
Words: Katie Mishner
Images: TBA
