Hall prepared to go the distance
Glenn Lavery in Liechtenstein
Friday, 21 May, 2010
Rob Hall is taking Euros day-by-day but with big prize in mind.
UEFA European U17 Championship
The Finals
Group B
Vaduz, Liechtenstein
Live on Eurosport
By Glenn Lavery in Liechtenstein
After his cameo performance against Czech Republic, Rob Hall says he is ready to take on Greece later today knowing a victory could put England within touching distance of the UEFA European U17 Championship semi-final.
With the scores locked at 1-1 Hall came off the bench on Tuesday in the 59th minute and had an important part to play in John Peacock’s side taking the lead, feeding the ball into the box where Connor Wickham was on-hand to set up Josh McEachran to score.
“I started off a bit nervous, but I think that just comes with the game really,” said the West Ham youngster. “I found my feet in the end and I thought I did alright. I was pleased with my role in the goal.
“From the bench I could see that I might have the better of their left back and we knew we could cause their left-sided centre back problems as well, so that’s what I was aiming to do. John just told me to go on, do my best and just get at the pair of them. When you’ve got such good players in the team, they’ll keep talking to you and everyone helps each other out, so it makes it a lot easier to get into the game. We’ve got a very good team and it’s just great to be a part of it.”
The win over Czech Republic has been consigned to history and Hall is now looking ahead to tonight’s game in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. If England win and Turkey beat Czech Republic in the other Group B game, then England can look forward to a spot in next Thursday’s semi-final.
“Greece sound quite good and I’m sure it will be a tough game,” said Hall. “We’ve had a couple of meetings on them and watched the DVDs and now we’re just looking forward to the game.
“We’re taking it one day at a time. We know that we have to win every game if we want to win the tournament and that’s what we are striving to do. Our mentality will be to just go out there and do a job. We won’t focus on other results, we’ll concentrate on ourselves and, as John says, the future will take care of itself."