Head Coach urges her players to make the most of World Cup experience.
Click on the link on the right to watch the full interview with Mo
The England Women’s U20 side are less than a week away from embarking on their World Cup adventure in Germany and Head Coach Mo Marley has urged her players to make the most of the experience.
Despite their international pedigree - the majority of this squad have appeared in the last two European U19 Championship Finals, lifting the title in 2009 - Marley acknowledges the fact that her players are very much in the early stages of their careers and wants them to use this World Cup as a stepping stone to the senior team.
The Head Coach spoke to FATV ahead of their first game against Nigeria next Wednesday.
She said: “The girls are still developing and it’s still about learning, it’s about getting them to understand it’s about performances in a World Cup.
“The first thing we’re talking about is getting us right, starting as we mean to go on, trying to bed down a performance and then building on it game-to-game. [The] reality is that doesn’t always happen but that’s the beauty of a competition and that’s the beauty of tournament football.
“They still are in a learning phase of their international career and the more major competitions that we participate in, the better we’ll become at it. These girls have had a taste of it either at a previous World Cup or in a European Championship – and in some cases two European Championships. Now we’ve got that experience it’s about coping with everything that goes with it; performances, pressure, delivering when it counts and that’s an art, it’s not an easy thing to do.
“The [players] who show the capabilities of delivering in a competition at this stage have usually stepped on and moved on to the senior team. If you look at the senior team now, there’s three or four girls who played a key role in Chile in 2008 and it’s brilliant. The platform’s there.
“Everybody wants to be a senior international. That transition will become easier when these players show that this [world] stage is the norm for them and it’s an environment they’re comfortable with.”