Marley remains upbeat
Friday, 06 July, 2012
Women’s U19 Head Coach takes positives despite Euro exit
Mo Marley refused to be downbeat after her England Women’s U19 side were beaten 4-0 by Spain, ending their hopes of a spot in the European Championship semi-finals.
Needing a win to keep alive any hope of progression, the Young Lionesses had a proverbial mountain to climb after conceding three first-half goals. Spanish skipper Alexia Putellas gave her side the lead on 17 minutes and Amanda Sampedro doubled the advantage on 29, while Virginia Torrecilla made it 3-0 in added time at the end of the half.
Torrecilla bagged her second of the night on 69 minutes to complete the scoring and secure Spain’s place in the last four.
“We knew we had an inexperienced team and that the teams we were going to play were top quality,” admitted Marley after the game.
“People will look at the scoreline and think it was one-sided, but though they did create more chances than us, there are still a lot of positives we can take from the game. Nobody lacked effort today, everybody covered the ground, it just came down to that little bit of extra quality and unfortunately we didn't have that.
“A lot of their girls have experience at different levels of the game, which our girls don't, but one of the positives is we had all our younger girls on the pitch come the end of the match, which is great for them at a tournament like this.
“It was disappointing for Dan Carter that she was ill and couldn't play, but on the plus side it gave one of our younger players the chance to be involved.”
England still have one more group game to play, against Serbia on Sunday.