U20 EURO 2009
Anja’s message
Hello you and welcome to your U20 EURO special section.
Over the past year we have seen a number of beautiful players and two great World youth tournaments. The cycle does not stop though and every year we are treated to another group of the best young players in Europe playing not only for their reputations but for a place in the World Championships which follow the next year.
History has shown us that the Germans are one of the strongest nations at youth football. The number of players who have starred in the senior teams in the last 7 years is more than any other country in Europe. So is this tournament important?
For the big nations such as England, Germany and France it may take a player 4-5 years before they get a chance to play regularly for the senior team. For the smaller nations such as Italy, Switzerland and Belarus a good tournament may see a player in the senior team in 2-3 years or in the case of Russia’s Elena Danilova (2006 top scorer) a great tournament may have you in the Senior team straight away.
However winning the tournament is not goal if you ask the coaches. The goal is development and guiding the futures of young females on and off the field. The good for a country not winning is that the players do their best and improve so much in their home leagues that they make a challenge for the national team.
This has been the case for England in the past 4 years they have not looked like winning the U20 over the past 4 years but have developed Karen Carney, Buet, Whelan, Duggan, Flaherty, Williams, and most of all 50 goal star Lianne Sanderson.
The other end is the Italian effort. Winners of the tournament in 2008 with a great defender, goalkeeper and midfielder they have found it harder to integrate their young stars into the senior team. The main reason being that the Italian league is not very strong. The main concern for the coach last year was that the players find better clubs in another country.
So the balance is between individual growth and what is best for the country.
Sometimes it is harder for a country to put its hands in the air and say our league is not working and the players are just getting worse staying here. The main example everyone is talking about is Norway. They have the highest number of female players compared to male players than any other country in Europe.
However since the days of Anita Rapp, Dagny Mellgren and Hege Riise the Norwegians have not produced a world class player. Ingvild Stensland may have played for a number of the best teams in Europe but she is far from one of the best midfielders. So we look to Maren Mjelde the best Norwegian player for some time who starts for the senior team at the age of 19 and Sara Gama with Italy.
Two players who have the world at their feet and time on their side.
Over the next 2 weeks we will see who the new princesses of our footballgirl world are and what the future holds for them.
Anja xoxo
anjamoller@footballgirl.com
The European Under-20 Championship is a competition in women's football for European national teams of players under 19 years of age. It is also a FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup qualifying competition. National under-19 teams whose countries belong to the European governing body UEFA can register to enter the competition.The competition began in the 1997-98 season as an under-18 event; it became an under-19s event from the 2001-02 season. The Championship has 2 phases: the qualifying phase open to all eligible nations, and the finals phase which is composed of 8 qualifying teams. The finals themselves are composed of two groups of four teams; each team plays the others in the group. The winner of each group after the 3 matches plays the runner-up of the opposing group in a semi-final, with the winner contesting the final.
