England Women vs Bosnia-Herzegovina Women: Karen Bardsley takes confidence from Germany draw as Lionesses poised for 'big things'
England Women take on their Bosnian counterparts at Bristol's Ashton Gate off the back of a goalless draw in Germany
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Your support makes all the difference.England resume their Euro 2017 qualification programme against Bosnia & Herzegovina in Bristol tomorrow confident that they are contenders to win the competition when it starts in the Netherlands.
Thursday’s scoreless draw against Germany in Duisburg meant they have now gone 255 minutes since conceding to the reigning European champions - a vast improvement since their Wembley debut last November was marred by the same opposition scoring three goals before half-time.
Karen Bardsley, who has been in goal for all these matches, said: “We have come a long way in a year. We are very proud of what we have achieved at the World Cup and the progress to now. Maybe we were outfoxed this time last year, but we have a lot more self-belief and we are capable of big things.”
Though of Mancunian stock Bardsley grew up in the can-do mentailty of California and was thus surprised when she began playing for England at her team-mates’ relative lack of confidence
“There is a lot of positivity in the bunch now,” she said. “Mark [Sampson] and his staff allow us to believe in ourselves. That is something we had not done for a while. For a long time we have had the typical English mentality: self deprecating and not a whole lot of self belief. I found it odd. I was coming in and thinking, ‘why doesn’t everyone believe in themselves?’ That is changing.”
Matching Europe’s leading side - and beating them in the World Cup third-place play-off in July - helps. Though Bardsley was far busier than her German counterpart she was correct to say: “They had chances, they are second in the world so they will, but I wasn’t getting bombarded.”
The next step is to take the game to such opponents, rather than focus on containing them. That will take time though Sampson noted England’s strong finish meant when the fourth official indicated added time at the end of the second half, ‘half the substitute’s bench were complaining it was not enough’.
Tomorrow’s match, at Ashton Gate, will be a very different challenge with England expected to dominate against opponents who will sit deep and try and frustrate.
Tickets: £5, £2.50
Kick-off: 3.30pm
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