England Under-16s
Montaigu Tournament, France

England

0 - 1

Ivory Coast



England Under-16s tonight went down to a well organised and physical Ivory Coast side. After conceding in the first half, John McDermott's young lions bossed a lot of the possession, but couldn't find an equaliser in the torrential rain.

Talking to TheFA.com after the game, McDermott said: "We're a little disappointed because we know we can play better than we did tonight - we never played with any fluidity and we were caught a little cold with the goal.

"This is the first time our players have been together, but after a really positive few days of preparation, we couldn't take our performance in training into the game tonight.

"After 12 years of working with young players I know you get lots of ups and downs, and we have an opportunity tomorrow night against the USA to maybe work on some of the things that didn't work so well for us tonight.

"However there were some positive performances tonight. We used 5 substitutes with a view to a game coming as quickly as tomorrow. David Button had a very positive performance in goal, and James Tompkins played very well on his international debut

"There are undoubtedly some talented players in this group and as coaches we'll be looking for them to learn from tonight and bounce back in our next 3 games."


The Under-16s face the USA tomorrow and Italy on Saturday in the group stage of the Montaigu Tournament. Log on to TheFA.com for all the latest news.