Source: FOOTYMAD
Signeul Green For Go
Anna Signeul has been instrumental in making sure Scotland are taken seriously on the women's world football stage National coach Anna Signeul has been working hard since her appointment in 2005 to make Scotland a real player in the women's game. She has had her work cut out in the last seven years, with not just mind-sets to change but also structures and bureaucracy to cut back before she could turn her mind to doing what she was really employed to do: develop the national side. Swedish Signeul welcomes her homeland team to her adopted country today as Scotland prepare for the upcoming 2013 European Championships qualifying games. The connections built between the two countries in the last seven years made arranging the game relatively easy. However, Signeul does not expect or want an easy game. Gemma Fay, Anna Signeul and Rhonda Jones (c) Ger Harley | SportPix I asked Signeul how could a game against a side ranked 16 places above Scotland help ahead of some key games. She said: "In general, to reach the next level, we have chosen to play against teams that are better than us. To increase the intensity (of the games); to make the players think faster; act faster and also learn to play at that intensity. That is the game we want to play. If you are coming up to games in the qualifiers and you don't have that kind of kind of opposition in the group; (playing a side like Sweden) it will helps us in that everybody will be very much switched on and have a higher tempo to their play. We may not get the opportunity to attack so much tomorrow. However, I do think we are changing that as well because, when we are playing against better opponents like France, that we are having more possession. Of course, it is not as much as when we played Poland two or three weeks ago for example. It definitely will help us to prepare to be solid in defence; we need to be switched on at the back and we need to be very good in defence. We would like to have a clean sheet ahead of the qualifiers. We have two difficult (qualifying) games coming up. It is not easy to play against Israel or Ireland. However, I do think we need to defend very well against them so we don't concede unnecessary goals. This game can also help us in the way we really need to work on our defence." Signeul sees the next biggest challenge as gaining qualification to next year's Women's European Championships, to be played in Sweden. The squad has grown in stature over the last couple of years and I asked what changes Signeul had seen in recent months that convinced her that qualification is achievable. The national coach said: "The thing that is the biggest indicator of that is that we develop all the time. The young players coming through, the players that are in the squad and have been for some time, they also develop which is fantastic to see. We don't know if we have lost Julie Fleeting for the whole campaign, but we have already lost her for the beginning of the campaign. This is a huge loss for Scotland, because she has been the one that everyone has counted on to get the goals. I do think we have less experience than we did in the last campaign; the average age of the squad has dropped by two years. However, when I see these young players and the more experienced players like Rhonda Jones I can see a difference. After sitting on the bench for five years, not having a starting place, since the spring Rhonda has somehow blossomed. She has started every game this year and not because anybody else has dropped out through injury, she has improved and earned her place in the starting 11. Without Julie, players have stepped up to take responsibility and the goals have been spread around the team. Nobody thinks about Julie being missing, which is unfortunate for Julie, but we have now played four games without her and we know we can do it without her and we know we have to do it without Julie. The players think that way now. It was a great win against Ireland (2-1 home win with Scotland's goals coming in the 86 and 87 minute after going behind in four minutes). The young players on the pitch saw Rhonda stepping up to take responsibility to change the outcome of the game (Jones scored the equaliser in 86 minutes). She showed that she had won 99 caps in that game because that was impressive, so determined to improve her and the teams performance. That win was important especially so late in the game. It showed the team that we can do it, even if we have to score in the last minute. That is a fantastic lesson the players taught themselves." Rhonda Jones celebrates equalising against the Republic of Ireland in April (c) Ger Harley | SportPix
