Section:GDN 1N PaGe:46 Edition Date:190829 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 28/8/2019 20:45 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Thursday 29 Aug ust 2019
(^46) Sport
Football
‘This has
been my
dream
since I was
seven’
Carrie Jones cannot play for
her club until she turns 16
next week but she may make
her Wales debut tonight
Suzanne Wrack
I
t is a surreal situation.
Ineligible to play for her club
until her 16th birthday on
4 September, Wales’s newest
senior call-up, Carrie Jones,
could make her international
debut before she can turn out for
Cardiff City.
It may be fair to assume Jones
is unlikely to start the Euro 2021
qualifi ers against the Faroe Islands
to night and Northern Ireland on
Tuesday but she could feature, with
the manager, Jayne Ludlow, saying:
“I see her challenging for a place.
If she wasn’t going to do that she
wouldn’t be selected.
“The reality of the youngster
we’re talking about is that she’s
performing very well in the domestic
programme and we have high hopes
for her in the future. It’s very early
days in her senior career, club and
country, and it’s a learning process.”
So where has Jones come from?
While playing for Newtown White
Stars and Berriew Juniors in Powys,
before joining the Women’s National
Southern Premier League side
Cardiff this summer, she has been
nurtured by the Wales performance
squad too. And with Ludlow and
her coaching team stretched
across all international age groups,
they have a good grip on players
coming through.
Jones had a tip-off that she might
be about to receive the call-up to
the senior side. “It’s quite a funny
story really,” says the surprisingly
confi dent and at-ease player. “I
was on the way back for a Cardiff
game and Lauren [Smith, the Wales
assistant manager ] goes to me: ‘Had
any news yet?’ And I said: ‘No, I
don’t think so .’ But I’d kind of got the
gist of it and then I got in the car and
mum said: ‘You’ve made the squad.’
I said: ‘Wow,’ because I just couldn’t
believe it. It was a proud moment
for me and my family. The victory is
so much more sweeter when you’ve
put so much hard work into it.”
She may be young but Jones oozes
maturity. This call-up is the reward
for hard work and long hours. “I
train at USW [University of South
Wales] with the performance centre
and I live just outside of Newtown,
so it’s a good trek. Mum and dad are
the taxi drivers.
“Luckily there is another girl that
we share lifts with so it’s not as hard,
but obviously ‘Thanks Mum!’” shesays with a grin at her mother seated
in the corner.
“It’s twice a week, Tuesday and
Friday, with a game on Sunday
which could be anywhere. Last
week I went somewhere in London,
so obviously it’s hard on Mum and
Dad, and I’ve got a brother and sister
so it’s hard for them to give time to
them because of my football. ”
It is a familiar scenario faced by
many a parent of a talented young
female player. With high-level
training hard to come by, long
journeys are part and parcel of
nurturing talented daughters.
“I started playing at seven,” says
Jones. “I’ve got older male cousins
and they’re big football fans. We
used to go over my nan’s farm and
start playing football in the fi elds,
and we’d set up little fi ve-a-sides
with the family on a Sunday, and
then it’s just progressed from there.
“I played for a boys’ team
[Newtown], then a rule came in that
I couldn’t play for a boys’ team until
I was 12, so I moved to a girls’ team,
and then that rule went, so I joined
back to a boys’ team. It’s been a big
journey, but this has been my dream
since I was seven .”N
ow, she has swapped
cousins for players
such as Manchester
United’s Hayley Ladd,
Reading’s Natasha
Harding and, when fi t,
the midfi eld magician Jess Fishlock.
“It’s crazy, you know?” Jones says.
“Cos I was in the changing rooms
for the Russia game and being in
the squad has been a dream of
mine since I was seven years old, so
having Jess Fishlock sitting opposite
me in the changing room, I was
like: ‘Woooah.’”
Despite being unable to start
the season with Cardiff , Jones has
played a few pre-season games. “I’ve
been training with the girls, so that’s
not that much of a change, but with
the games it’s so much diff erent in
terms of physicality,” she says.
Once this window is over she
heads back to school. The reception
from her classmates may be a little
bit diff erent. “ The BBC are showing
the games, so hopefully they will
fi nd out,” she says. “I don’t actually
know when I’ll go back to school
because I’ve got my fi rst Cardiff
game on the second day that I’ll
go back and I’ll miss the fi rst day
of school because I’m on camp.
Hopefully I’ll get a warm welcome .”Hopefully I’ll get a warm welcome .”Carrie Jones hopes
schoolmates see her
play for Wales on TVNeville targets Tokyo as
he prepares for Belgium
Phil Neville has said failure clouded his
judg ment after England’s World Cup
semi-fi nal against the USA and that he
regrets calling the third-place play-off
a “nonsense game”.
On the eve of to day’s friendly
against Belgium, the manager said:
“I wanted to win so badly. I think that
had an eff ect on me personally when
we went to the third- and fourth-place
play-off , because I was always brought
up to believe that winning was
everything and I still believe that now.
“But coming back with a win is
better than a defeat. So that game is
probably something I didn’t handle
well. I was probably the worst out of
anybody, because I was judging us
against fi rst. So on refl ection, looking
at the Olympics and beyond that, we
want to win, but going to the Olympics
and getting on that podium has to be
something that we look at.”
Neville still believes the extra
game should not exist. “I’ve never
liked third- or fourth-place games.
It was 1990 and Italy were dancing
on the stage after; it wasn’t a fi nal. I
don’t like the game and neither do my
players – we’ve spoken about it. We
wanted to win gold. Should I have said
‘ nonsense’? Probably not, but it was
my feeling at the time.”
Neville’s drive to instil a winning
mentality has meant that, for his
players, bronze would not have beengood enough, and the goalkeeper
Carly Telford is open about that. “As
a collective we felt we were a failure,”
she said. “I think Phil was quite open
about that when he responded to the
bronze-medal match.
“I don’t think he worded it correctly
but I think he meant we came to win a
gold medal and we didn’t and therefore
anything else wasn’t going to be good
enough. I think even if we had won
bronze it wasn’t better than what we
had done previously .”
Nonetheless Telford thinks England
have progressed since their third
place at the 2015 World Cup. “I’d say
arguably yes, we’ve played a better
style of football, we beat oppositionEngland manager regrets
dismissing third-place game
but turns focus to OlympicsSuzanne Wrack
Leuventhat were good quite comfortably but
when it came to those fi nal margins
and hurdles we weren’t good enough.”
For Telford the Olympics is a dif-
ferent story , with a medal of any colour
meaning more. “As a footballer you
never really think of being an Olym-
pian because it’s not on our agenda
or within our sport. But now to be
classed, if you’re selected, as an Olym-
pian is one of the greatest honours in
sport and to have the opportunity to
represent Great Britain and women’s
sport in Tokyo would be an amazing
opportunity and help keep people
watching women’s football.”
With England hosting Euro 2021,
they have no competitive fi xtures
before then. The fi ght for an Olympic
place, though, adds much needed
competitiveness to the game here and
the match next Tuesday in Norway.
“For the Olympics I can only pick
18 players – and that’s not 18 England
players, that’s 18 home nation players,”
Neville said. “So they know they are
going to have to hit certain baro^ meters,
certain testing, certain levels, to make
an 18-player squad. So they can’t waste
a minute. I’ve seen my players come
back with incredible desire to do bet-
ter. The hurt, the anger, they are going
to use that as their fuel.”
Neville, having brought in Aoife
Mannion, recalled the 170-cap Fara
Williams and included the youngsters
Sandy McIver and Anna Patten (with
more young players also to get a
chance in the next three camps) , is
preparing to fi ll the gaps in the squad
made evident to him at the World Cup.
“We’re building now, a 23-player squad- 18 for the Olympics – that I can trust
to put on that fi eld,” he said.
“Tournament-ready footballers,
it’s really important. And I’ve got
to say those characters are the ones
that ultimately are more important
than ones with unbelievable ability,
and that’s ultimately the route we’re
going to go down. I pick characters, the
durable players, the ones that when
the going gets tough, they get up.”
England
Belgium
Today 6.30pm Friendly- Belgium
Probable: 4-3-3
Evrard; Deloose,
Jaques, De Neve,
Philtjens; Biesmans,
De Caigny, Missipo;
Vande Velde,
Wullaert, Cayman
Subs from
Odeurs, Lemey,
Lichtfus, Coutereels,
Tison, Van Belle,
Minnaert, Onzia,
Vanhaevermaet,
Dhont, Petry,
Vanmechelen, Van
Gorp, Van Kerkhoven- England
Probable: 4-3-3
Telford; Daly, Houghton,
Bright, Stokes; Bronze,
Walsh, Staniforth; Parris,
England, Mead
Subs from
Earps, Roebuck, McIver,
Blundell, Mannion,
McManus, Patten,
Williamson, Moore,
Stanway, Williams,
Duggan, Taylor
- England
(probable teams)
Venue Stadion Den Dreef, Leuven
22°
TV BBC Two▼ Steph Houghton exhorts
her England colleagues in
training in Anderlecht
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