‘Hat-trick hero’ Maltby reflects on Tanzania win

Rachel Maltby was delighted to come away with the match ball after notching a treble for England women’s under-20s in their second group stage game at the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup.

The Young Lionesses beat Tanzania 5-1 in Poland as Maltby, who was also named as the Player of the Match, scored a first-half hat-trick.

“I’m feeling pretty good, but I think it’s credit to the rest of my teammates for winning those penalties and feeding me that cross,” said Maltby.

“Hat-trick hero today,” said head coach Lydia Bedford on the goalscorer.

“Rachel’s got her processes, she’s spoken about them before and she’s developed them since the U17s World Cup.

“It’s just amazing that she can step up and do that the way she does and help the team out when they need her. I’m very proud of her.”

Princess Ademiluyi and Jessie Gale also making the scoresheet along with Maltby in an impressive victory.

“I think it was a brilliant performance from start to finish,” noted Bedford. “I’m so proud of the girls, that’s now four points out of the groups and I think we showed real improvements from the first game in front of goal.

“They really stuck to the game plan which showed in the first half for sure. We’ve now had everyone on the pitch apart outside of our two spare goalkeepers, so I think that’s a really strong place to be as a squad going into our last group game.”

“We definitely grew from the Canada game,” explained Maltby. “We spoke about the crosses and getting on the end of them and we I think we did that. There are still things to work on going into Brazil but it’s a good start.

The Young Lionesses play their final Group B fixture on Friday 11 September (2pm BST kick-off) against Brazil as Bedford’s team look to advance to the knockouts.

England sit second in the standings, trailing their next opponents by just two points, with Brazil having won two from two.

“I think it’ll be a tough test,” said Bedford. “There are things from the second half today that we need to tidy up to make sure we can compete with Brazil.

“But we’ve put ourselves in the best possible position. We have the opportunity to take three points from that game and compete for top of the group. That is all you can ask for from the players after a tough start a few days ago.”

“It’s going to be a really exciting game,” added. Maltby. “The last one which is really important for us but we’ll just prepare the same way and hopefully get a win.”