Yes, there is much competition in the U-19 area now. Compared to the 2011 edition of the U-19 women's EURO there are 7 new teams participating in the 2012 edition.
Yeah, thanks to brilliant pieces of incompetence like Germany not picking a single forward for their squad, 2012 has been a great year for the rest of competition . With Germany being so far ahead of the curve, can we now expect the rest of the field to introduce a similar golf like handicap to women's youth football . Seriously though, I honestly feel the up coming U-20 WC has played a huge part in this years random U-19 Euro comp. I read views on Europe's poor showing during the last U-20 WC, and many of Europe's coaches seemed to think the added strain of increasing regional competition wore down players prior to the global showpiece. So we'll see if this continues to be the norm when the next U-19/UEFA WC qualifying returns.
Well, not conceding against Sweden would have been enough... Anyway, new results from the U-17 Qualifying: Spain U-17 - Germany U-17 0:3 Czech Republic U-17 - Serbia U-17 2:2 So at least Germany's U-17 has qualified. I always talked bad about the team, but at least you can trust Sara Däbritz to score goals (from penalties).
Also group 1 isn't decided at all: Switzerland U-17 - Iceland U-17 1:0 Belgium U-17 - England U-17 0:1 Well, Belgium are out, but at least three teams still fight for the 1st place. I have to say, I am not rooting for Iceland, seeing as they were... not exactly competitive last year.
Belgium U-17 - Iceland U-17 1:3 Switzerland U-17 - England U-17 1:0 So Switzerland will be the opponent of France in the 1st semi final and they're playing at home.
And the last final four participant is decided: Denmark U-17 They won their group with 7 points and eliminated Sweden (4 pts), Netherlands (3 pts) and Finland (3 pts). Semi finals (26.06.2012): Switzerland U-17 - France U-17 (11:00 CET) Denmark U-17 - Germany U-17 (15:00 CET) Only the winners of these matches will qualify for the U-17 WWC 2012.
Switzerland U-17 - France U-17 1:5 Denmark U-17 - Germany U-17 0:2 Both favorites advance to the final and qualify to the U-17 world cup in Azerbaijan.
I know the final will be televised somewhere, but do we have any highlights of either semi final clash floating around?
Sadly there aren't any highlights. But you can see the final live on Eurosport (and the 3rd place match on Europsort 2).
Denmark U-17 - Switzerland U-17 0:0 5:4 pen Germany U-17 - France U-17 1:1 4:3 pen Germany's 3rd win and France's 3rd loss in a final.
It's really sad, because France's U-17 belongs to the three best teams in Europe. But the U-17 world cup is just around the corner. Let's wait and see what France can achieve there.
But they finished second, so that fits, no? I have to admit though that the French often had the edge during the game yesterday. And we may well see Sandie Toletti on the senior team sooner rather than later.
The German coach said as much, by confirming that she thought France had the better individuals, but seemed to struggle with fitness issues. Looking at Toletti, I can imagine the German coaches opinions ringing true, as the French girls never seem to look like the most robust athletes in the world at younger age groups, which likely steams from a clear FFF focus on technique at that stage of talent development. Last year France had another Abiliy clone, and now it seems Toletti is just the latest off the conveyor belt, but they are all going to be a very long way from seeing senior recognition any time soon. We're all witnessing a increasing gulf between U-17 girls, and established senior regulars, with only the most elite youth talents capable of making a serious impact at the games highest levels now. The way France are progressing, I can't see Toletti being anywhere near the senior ranks over the next 5 years, but it should be interesting to see if France can begin to impress at youth world tournaments again, because the last time we saw that happen, it featured the talents of players like Le Sommer, and Delie.
Yes, toletti is regarded as one of the most promising french player, as claire lavogez (the other abily's clone batfink) is.....the two play in the same team , Montpellier . This kind of player, attacking central midfielder , is becoming france's trademark , we are producing a lot of this kind, even too much......I mean , we already have "tactical problems" with necib-abily-thiney in the senior .....with the emergence of catala, hamraoui,dali plus the youngest toletti,lavogez etc.... the position will be "overloaded" in a few years .....however , we incredibly lack center forwards, behind delie there is no one else very interesting.
I don't think France are the only nation with the same overload of creative central mid talents right now (see Japan lately?). Thanks to changes in coaching, the game is producing a glut of creative players, in a era where the role of the classic target forward is changing rapidly for most nations too. If France are smart, they will make sure their girls are able to rotate positions during the flow of the match, which should negate their need for an over dependency on one forward to score the majority of their goals. I mean, because having Delie is great right now, but what good would having another six Delie's do, for a national program that only deploys a system with one target forward throughout every age group? At some point, with all the obvious knowledge the FFF have with spotting and developing creative #10's, one girl will emerge as something very special to move things further forward again. Germany have been doing this for years now, so it wouldn't surprise me to see France pull off something similar.
I kind of like these uniforms. Are these new uniforms for France? Gold numbers on the blue jersey (in 2011 WWC, they wore white numbers on the blue jersey). Will they wear these new blue/gold ones in the Olympics?
And France's striped white jerseys are boring. I hope they stick with the blue. I already don't like the new USA or Canada uniforms that much.
Now this is a great ladies jersey for futebol. Bompastor would make a great pilot or stewardess for a local airline with one of these.