Lydia Bedford previews Tanzania
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The Young Lionesses boss reflects on a draw with Canada and England’s upcoming game at the U20 Women’s World Cup
She previewed the Young Lionesses’ game against Tanzania this evening (5pm BST kick-off) – England’s second Group B outing at the tournament, having played out a 1-1 draw with Canada in their opener at the weekend to put a point on the board.
“There’s always an element of disappointment when you don’t win a game of football but I’d still hold back to the fact that taking a point out of your first group game of a World Cup is a bit of a non-negotiable,” said Bedford, on the Canada result.
“You don’t want to give yourself a really hard mountain to climb so I’m really proud of the way the players responded in the game and how they dealt with the adversity and kept pushing, the impact of the bench and the players that remained on the pitch.
“I think there’s lots that we can take from that game that will hopefully help us to be even more resilient based on what we face going forward.”
Today’s opponents, Tanzania, were beaten 4-1 in their curtain-raiser by Brazil – whom England will face in their final group stage game on Friday 11 September (2pm BST) – and Bedford’s staff were in attendance as part of their preparations.
“It was really helpful and important that my assistant Remi, along with Jamo the goalkeeping coach and Dan one of our analysts went to that game and were able to watch them live,” continued Bedford.
“A number of their players have had exposure to their senior team so we could cast half an eye on that and the coach is the same coach.
“For Tanzania, we know they need to get something out of this game whereas we’re not quite in the exact same boat.
“From what we’ve seen of them, they’re pretty aggressive and very physical so we need to make sure we settle quickly in the game and play our own style.”
The Young Lionesses boss also touched on how her players have settled into their surroundings in Poland where the tournament is being staged.
“We’re really lucky,” Bedford explained. “Bielsko-Biala is a lovely town and the location of our hotel gives our players a lot of freedom and downtime outside of what we’re doing with them which allows them to switch off and work out when to focus on the game and when to enjoy the surroundings that they have.
“I think it’s a really nice base and hotel for us and the training venues have been great. Everyone’s made us feel very welcome so I think we’re very lucky – we have absolutely everything we can possibly need.”
And with a short turnaround between games, Bedford called out the team behind the team and the work that goes on behind the scenes.
“We’re incredibly lucky to have such a strong team of staff that can support the players to quickly turn around recovery and get their fuelling right,” she said.
“Having great medical staff that can turn around players so that we had everyone training is also really good.
“From a workload perspective for the technical team, turning around reviews and preparation can be quite challenging but I actually haven’t felt overly under pressure or stressed in the last couple of days because we’ve got some good ways of working from previous camps.
“That puts us in quite a strong position going into the second game that we’re not carrying any high mental fatigue and we can be really clear and looking forward to going and playing the next one.”
Tune in to watch today’s game between England and Tanzania on FIFA+ via DAZN.
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