‘Jamo’ Ready For Spanish Test
Matty James is looking forward to an UEFA U19s Championship semi-final against Spain on Tuesday afternoon.
The North End midfielder is currently captaining Noel Blake’s U19 squad and after England qualified for the last four with a 1-1 draw against France on Saturday, James and his team-mates will be keen to put one over on a Spanish team whose senior counterparts were recently crowned World Champions.
The media spotlight has shone brightly on the development of English football in recent weeks and a victory over the best Spain has to offer will put England’s youngsters sharply into focus.
Speaking on his blog on TheFA.com after the 1-1 draw against France, James admitted that he was looking forward to tackling Spain…
“It really felt like we’d won the game on Saturday and everyone knew we’d put in a good performance and everyone knew we were going through to the next round, so we were all upbeat. There was a great atmosphere around the place and back at the hotel when we returned.
“We have got gradually better and better as the games have come along in the competition so far and I think that’s good. You work at things as you go and you can learn from your mistakes, whereas if you come out here and win your first three games you may be feeling over-confident that you’re going to walk through.
“France are the home team in this competition and seen as one of the favourites to win it, along with Spain, so we know we have a hard game on Tuesday now but we’ll certainly be going into the match with confidence after our last performance.
“I’ve played against Spain once with England and that was a couple of years ago with the U16s. We played them in one of the first games to be staged at the new Wembley, and we won that game 1-0 thanks to a goal from Jack Rodwell. Hopefully, we can get a similar result on Tuesday. I think they’ve still got a few of the players from that match in their squad, but we know that they’ll all be very good technical players.”