WALES vs ENGLAND

'An ideal starting point'

by Glenn Lavery

Friday, 15 October, 2010

Kenny Swain lauds importance of the Victory Shield.

The England U16 team will get their Victory Shield campaign underway against Wales on Friday evening and their Head Coach, Kenny Swain, believes this competition can provide his young players with the perfect introduction to international football.

This annual ‘round robin’ tournament, which can be dated back to 1954, features the four Home Nations and has been a good breeding ground for many future senior team players, including Wayne Rooney, Joe Cole, James Milner and Jermain Defoe.

England have an excellent record in this competition, winning or sharing each of the last nine Shields. And, while winning matches and tournaments at all levels remains a key objective, the main motivation behind the Victory Shield is to offer young footballers a platform to develop their game.

“That is what we are ultimately all about; developing players for the Under-21 and England senior teams.” said Swain.

“Looking at this squad, there seems to be a good depth of talent to look at over the coming weeks and I’m really looking forward to these next three games.”

This excitement is no doubt shared by his players, but, ahead of their maiden England international, Swain believes a few nerves will be creeping in amongst his charges.

“Understandably, at this young age the players are excited about the game but they will also be a little bit anxious, and that's only natural,” predicted the 1982 European Cup winner.

"Coming into a new environment there will always be nerves, but by now they are starting to get to know each other and settling in to the swing of things. They all came in to contact with each other in the summer at our U16 Development Day [during the summer], so that was good for them.

“And since they’ve met up in preparation for this match they have settled in well and performed very well in training, too.”

Despite England’s recent stranglehold on this competition, they have enjoyed a few tough games against the Welsh in the past few seasons and last year’s encounter was only settled by Zak Ansah’s winner four minutes from time.

Swain is expecting another difficult encounter on Friday and he also took time to praise the Welsh approach to player development.

“Wales have been very strong at youth level in the last few years,” he said. “A lot of their young players who started off at U16 level have gone through to the Under-21s and that is testimony to the work they’ve done within their youth set-up in recent seasons.

“They had been doing really well for a few years and [Wales U16 technical Director] Osian Roberts has taken this on another stage. He’s got them really organised; you can see they have been coached.”

England’s Head Coach says he relishes the element of rivalry between the four Home Nations and the level of competition this helps to create. He subsequently concedes that these Victory Shield matches are different to those against non-British opposition, but does believe they help to establish the foundations and principles needed in the international game.

“Although they are not ‘typical’ international games from a continental point of view, these three Victory Shield games are vital in terms of our preparation, and the competitive nature of the games means they are an ideal starting point for us,” he explained.

“Our next step after the Victory Shield is to take these boys overseas for a friendly during the February half-term and by then they should be aware of the challenges and requirements of international football.

“It’s always difficult to make an accurate assessment on players in the first game of this tournament,” continued Swain. “Nerves may play a part; playing in front of a sizeable crowd, live on TV, first game for their country, but we’ll keep tracking all the boys in this age group, as we do every season, to ensure they receive ample opportunity to show us what they can do.

“We’ve had some very talented players come through the U16s and hopefully this year’s group will be no different.”

The game takes place at Bridge Meadow Stadium, home of Haverfordwest County FC. It kicks off at 7.35pm and will be broadcast live on Sky Sports.

Squad in full: