REPUBLIC OF IRELAND Women’s Under 17 head coach Dave Connell insists his team has nothing to fear ahead of their Uefa Women’s U17 European Championships opener against France this afternoon.
Connell’s charges secured their place at the finals following a six game unbeaten run in qualifying and will take on France at 2pm (Irish time) in Kopavogur — a suburb of Reykjavik, — today.
As revealed by captain Jamie Finn yesterday, the team has been preparing diligently for the tournament and Connell is confident they can get off to a winning start in Group B.
“There’s quite a few girls here who have stepped up to the mark in the last couple of campaigns and that got us to a finals, so we’re looking forward to see how they perform on the big stage and they’re looking forward to it as well,” said Connell.
“It’s been good preparation, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it transfers into the game against France. But we’re very, very happy with our preparations and we feel that it was the right way to go and it will help us to get results.”
Connell is making something of a habit of guiding Irish underage teams to European success having been in charge when the women’s U19 team reached the semi-finals of last summer’s Uefa European Championships in Norway.
Now, he is hoping to do even better.
“What we did last year we’re doing exactly the same with this bunch of girls and we’re hoping that it will take us to another semi-final, if not final and maybe go one step further this time,” said Connell.
“But it’s concentrating on France first and trying to get a good result there and the momentum to pull us into the next game against Switzerland and then the final group game against Norway. So our target is to get out of the group, into a semi-final, and take it from there.”
Uefa European Championship Finals – Fixtures
- 22 June – Ireland v France (Kopavogur, Iceland; KO 2pm)
- 25 June – Ireland v Switzerland (Reykjavik, Iceland; KO 2pm)
- 28 June – Norway v Ireland (Kopavogur, Iceland; KO 2pm)
