On this day nine years ago, the Republic of Ireland U19’s played in the Semi-Finals of the Euro U19 Finals. This is how we reported them getting there at the time:
The remarkable run of the Irish U19 Women’s soccer team continued last night when they again came from behind to beat Sweden. The victory confirms their place in the semi-finals of the first major tournament they have played in.
That game will take place on Thursday evening against the Netherlands and it will be televised live on Eurosport.
Going into last night’s match the team knew that even defeat by a single goal would be enough and when Sweden opened the scoring it looked as though that might be the case. Just as they did against England on Friday though they came back with goals in the 21st and 80th minutes from Savannah McCarthy and Megan Connolly.
The team had previously beaten Spain and go into the penultimate game with a 100% record at the Championships in Norway.
They have been gaining great coverage across Irish and international media and it is likely that some of the players may pick up professional contracts as a result of their efforts.
So victories over England and Spain, and this was also their first ever tournament to have secured qualification for.
Katie McCabe had already secured that number 11 shirt and she can be seen in the picture above after they had secured that win against Sweden.
Chloe Mustaki and Roma McLoughlin were also in the squad as well as MvVarthy and Connolly and so too was Amy O’Connor who on Saturday secured a place for Cork in the Glen Dimplex All-Ireland Camogie Championship Final in two weeks’ time.
The semi-final result saw the Netherlands progress to the Final but within a month the FAI announced that Continental Tyres were coming on board as the first-ever sponsors of the Women’s League of Ireland.
Sport for Business Perspective:
Every journey is made up of many steps along the way but it is worth celebrating the anniversary of this for so many of the group that became the team that is now entrancing the nation at the Senior Women’s World Cup and other sporting fields.
