England 2 Switzerland 0

(Half Time 0-0)

England beat Switzerland for the first time and Portugal won the Championship

As in the group stage, both teams played with an organised defence in the first half.

With England starting the game pressuring the half way line which caused some upset to Switzerland as they expected us to play restricted pressuring only the man with the ball.

In our attack we played carousel with 3 or 4 men and  tried to use counter attacks.

At half time during our team talk I asked the team to keep 2 players in the Swiss area to upset their defence. Again the Swiss team didn’t expect our tactical change and we caused them a lot of problems. Playing two men at the back and two in attack instead of the carousel. This was a good decision as our team created so many goal opportunities many hitting the post and bar a number of times. The two goals scored were well deserved by the team for their efforts.

The team played well as a unit all game which was a big improvement from the previous game against Germany.

Goal scorers: Liam Conroy & William Smith

We played most of the competition with the tactic of man to man restricted pressuring the man with the ball, sometimes we pressured the half way line which we are looking to try more often if we can raise the fitness levels of our players. In attack our team showed we can now play in different ways causing problems to other teams. We had a few options in attack, three and four men carousel, keeping two players in the opposition’s area and good set up moves from free hits which we scored a couple of goals. One of the biggest overall improvement’s, was the team’s ability to change systems during the game.

England finished 7th for the 3rd year in the row, however the results have also improved as well as the team performance. We received a lot of positive feedback from other countries on how much we have improved over the last two years. Our team was the youngest team in the competition with 7 first year players (born in 1994) whilst other countries had at least 5 players in their last year. These teams will lose influential players for the next championship which I am hoping will give us an advantage next year when we hold the competition.

I am looking forward to next year’s championships, considering the fact that the U17’s team will now have some experience along with the talented players in the wings ready to replace those who have to move up to Juniors.

Carlos Amaral