England women will rule world before men
TOURNAMENT FLOPS TOO BRITTLE, INSISTS FA CHIEF
FA chief executive Martin Glenn has claimed England’s women’s footballers have more mental strength than their male counterparts.
Glenn said the women’s national team were ‘less brittle’ when asked which of the two sides had more chance of winning a World Cup.
After last year’s exit from the European Championship, the FA boss said England’s men seemed to suffer from a perennial lack of conviction at high-pressure moments.
But Glenn believes Gareth Southgate will copy the women’s example and work hard to instil a new mental resolve within an England side who have crashed out of the last two major tournaments in humiliating fashion — beaten by Iceland at Euro 2016 and dumped out of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil after two group games.
England’s women finished third at the 2015 World Cup and former FA chairman Greg Dyke identified the Qatar World Cup in five years’ time as the men’s long-term target, but Glenn said: ‘It will be easier for the women to win the 2023 World Cup than the men to win in 2022. There are fewer countries playing elite women’s football, so the pool is smaller.
‘But I think the women are also less brittle. You saw it today (with England players Kelly Smith and Alex Scott talking at the launch) and I saw it in Canada in 2015. It gives us great hope for the future.’
Glenn, who was speaking at the Wembley launch of an FA strategy to double participation in women’s football, added: ‘The women have a stronger sense of team identity. It has never been easy. You get strength through adversity. We have worked hard with sports psychiatrists and the science team to create that identity.’
On the new men’s boss, Glenn said: ‘ In Gareth, we have now got someone who wants to create the same identity in the men’s team and I am really confident we will have that.
‘The England women’s team is one of the best I have seen for team spirit, and we will get there with the men. With Gareth, he gets it, he absolutely gets it.’
Sitting next to distraught former England manager Roy Hodgson in Chantilly the day after the chastening Iceland defeat, Glenn described himself as ‘not a football expert’, but the chief executive believes England’s chronic tournament underachieving is more to do with a lack of belief than desire — and a more sophisticated scientific approach is needed to bring about a change in mentality.
He said: ‘What we have is a bit of a void right now. If you ask an England men’s player, “What medal would you really want to have?” It’s a World Cup winner’s medal. There isn’t a lack of passion or desire.
‘But there is a bit of a gulf in what they stand for. The bulldog spirit — go out and kill — it doesn’t work for such a diverse group and for this generation.’
Southgate has more immediate problems and could name an extended England squad due to injuries. Harry Kane, Danny Rose and Jordan Henderson will miss out. There are concerns over Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and captain Wayne Rooney.
Southampton’s James WardProwse and Nathan Redmond are on Southgate’s radar, plus Burnley’s Andre Gray and Middlesbrough’s Ben Gibson. Fit-again Danny Welbeck may return ahead of Jermain Defoe and Andy Carroll.