Girls in green ready for Samba sisters
The girls in green earned their historic place in the sun by finishing runners-up in the European Championship finals, only losing out to Spain in a penalty shoot-out in the final. And, as he announced his 21-player squad for the World Cup yesterday, manager Noel King admitted that the side won’t be going into the finals as traditional Irish underdogs.
“The fact that we’re Europe’s second seeds is a bit of a giveaway but we’re hoping we’ll still stay under the radar,” said King. “I don’t want to put any pressure on them at all but these girls are hungry and we’ll continue to encourage them to be hungry to do something special.”
The team warmed up nicely for the finals by beating England 1-0 and drawing 1-1 with Denmark to claim a tri-nations cup victory in Manchester last week. But in the Caribbean, the stakes will be raised considerably as the girls face Brazil, Canada and Ghana in a bid to claim a quarter-final berth in a competition likely to be dominated by strong Asian teams such as Japan and South Korea.
On the prospect of opening against the samba sisters, King smiled and said: “The positive thing with the kids is that they don’t understand how strong Brazil are and I don’t think we’ll educate them until the match is over.”
King’s stewardship of the team means that he will be temporarily handing over the reins of the men’s U21 side to the FAI’s High Performance Director Wim Koevermans.
With the Irish long since out of the running in the 2011 European Championship qualifying campaign, the Dutchman will be in charge of the team for the final matches against Switzerland and Turkey, allowing King to travel with the Irish girls to Fort Lauderdale, Florida for a week-long training and acclimatisation camp before heading on to Trinidad and Tobago.
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