11 Apr 2024
England U18 Girls out to continue improvement at Euros
The squad has already secured the notable achievement of a bronze medal at last year’s NEVZA tournament to reach this stage.
But now they will be pitted against some of the best teams Europe has to offer and are likely to find it tough going in this phase of the competition.
Lewis insists both he and the players are realistic enough to realise that positive scorelines in Cambados are likely to be hard to come by, given the pedigree and history of their opponents.
But he wants to see his players continue to take steps in the right direction, as he has previously witnessed during his time working with them.
“We know we have to manage expectations out in Spain and think about what defines success,” said Lewis. “If it’s not to be the case that we can beat these top teams at this point in time, then it has to be process driven.
“Can we get a good number of points in a set and make them competitive? Can we improve our serving and hitting efficiency? These and other things are what we can look at during the course of our trip.
“We know that it is going to be tough to beat Germany and Spain – although Estonia are a bit more of an unknown quantity – but having played the first two last year, we know what to expect and we want to see if we have moved on.
“Of course we want to go there and try to win matches, and we will be giving it everything, but beyond that we will also be focusing on targets that we have set for the players.
“Already they have made great strides in the last year and we want to continue to push their boundaries.”
England trained in Colchester at the University of Essex on Tuesday and yesterday – with scrimmaging against some of those players who turn out for the Rebels’ MAAREE Women’s Super League side a part of the schedule.
They fly out to Spain today (Thursday 11th April) before matches gets underway tomorrow, taking on Germany first at 4.30pm local time.
The girls will then go up against Spain on Saturday at 7pm local time and, finally, Estonia on Sunday at 4.30pm local time.
Lewis added: “The sessions we have had over the winter have gone well and we have tried to arrange a lot more matches as part of the training programme.
“The vast majority of players also went out to the tournament in Cornacchia, Italy over the Easter weekend, which allowed them to get some more international practice against strong opposition.
“It’s great to be able to take a full squad of 14 players to Spain, bringing that strength in depth and different options in a number of positions.
“There have been some difficult decisions to get down to the last 14, and we have to let some players down, but that’s also good in that it now shows we have a number of strong players to pick from.
“The NEVZA experience was a positive one and has helped them develop as a team, and that’s something we’re looking to build in in this tournament.”
Lewis has been pleased that the squad has been given the opportunity of regular practice since NEVZA qualification in October.
He believes that, bit by bit, the England teams at various age groups can become more competitive at the top level as standards improve across the board.
“In the same way that the Bellos have shown that you can live here and be successful beach volleyball players, so we want to create some really good role models in the indoor game too,” said Lewis.
“To help with that we have restructured the talent pathway and we are looking to get more quality coaches involved to help ensure better training both in the England set-up and at club level.
“We also need to get our players playing more on the international scene as well. Our players only have a handful of caps, while some of those they are playing against might have 70, 80 or 90.
“If we can improve all of these things over time, then eventually that is going to help us secure better outcomes in matches.”
Matches are scheduled to be streamed live. You can watch them by clicking here.
Pictures by @kay.klu
