The captain of the England Women’s national football team, Casey Stoney, has said that she is very happy that her team will play the friendly matches against Japan and Canada before the European Championship finals which will take place in July.
England will first face Canada on 7th of April at Rotherham and then, will face Japan on 26th of June at Burton.
When asked about those two upcoming friendly matches, Stoney said, “It’s great that we will face a couple of very strong teams before such a big tournament.”
“Canada had defeated us in the Olympics. But, they hadn’t outplayed us in that match. We had our chances, but, we couldn’t capitalize on them. We have learnt a lot from that match and now, we are ready to avenge that loss.”
“Japan is a very strong side. They have a lot of class players and they are one of the best sides in the world at the moment. So, if we manage to defeat them, it will certainly make us more confident before the European Championship finals.”
“We had defeated Japan in the group stages of the World Cup 2011 and we are capable of doing that again.”
England had beaten Japan by 2-0 in a Group B match played at Impuls Arena, Augsburg on 5th July, 2011.
Before these two friendly matches, the England team will take part in the Cyprus Cup which is going to be played Next month. In that tournament, England will play against New Zealand, Italy and Scotland in the group stages.
When asked about her team’s chances in the Cyprus Cup, Stoney said, “We had won this competition in 2009 and we can do that again if we play up to our potential. But, right now, we are concentrating only on the group matches. First, we want to qualify for the knock out stages and then, we will see from there.”