The Icelandic women’s football team ended their participation in the European Championship in Football with a 0-1 defeat against Germany, the World Champion, in Finland yesterday—not without a struggle, though.
Iceland’s coach Sigurdur Ragnar Eyjólfsson is satisfied with his team’s defensive play. “We played super defense and I’m satisfied with that. We consider this game good preparation for the game against France in the World Championship qualifying round in the end of October,” he told Morgunbladid.
“I think that when our players look back at the competition they can be satisfied with having been here and played against Europe’s best teams. All of the teams that we played against are among the top ten on the world list and none of them tore us apart,” Eyjólfsson said.
Eyjólfsson said the next step is to improve the team’s performance, especially the offense. “We have dangerous offensive players but as a team we are a little behind our opponents in keeping the ball within the team and play. Reception of the ball under pressure and other such things is something we have to fix.”
Iceland will soon meet their next opponents in the qualifying round to the 2011 World Championship, which began with a 5-0 victory over Serbia earlier this month. “We play against Estonia on Laugardalsvöllur [in Reykjavík] on September 17,” Eyjólfsson announced.
Click here to read more about the game against Serbia and here to read more about Iceland’s performance in Finland.
