Monday 29 June 2015 07:18, UK
The temperatures are rising in Edmonton ahead of England's semi-final clash with Japan at the Women's World Cup, reports Geraint Hughes...
At times I’m not sure what day it is, even what the time is.
What is also very unclear is that sometimes if feels like five minutes ago I along with the rest of the England squad were heading to Moncton, the sleepiest of sleepy towns on Canada’s Atlantic coast, and then at other times I’m thinking to myself was I in Moncton last year or maybe two years ago?
What is clear is there is very good chance I’m going slightly gaga, but also that England are now in Edmonton and are in a World Cup semi-final. If I think too hard how we got here…well let’s not.
The reality is that England’s women are 90 minutes, or perhaps 120 minutes or even all the way through a penalty shoot out, from reaching a World Cup Final.
The squad and all the backroom staff have arrived in Edmonton and the most noticeable thing at the moment is that as I write this on Sunday evening, having not long arrived, it’s 30 degrees celsius outside.
I was walking down the road to where the England team are staying and got talking to one of the bell-boys at their hotel and as we British do talked about the weather. “Is it always this hot?”
The reply was polite: “We get this from time to time, we’ll get three or four days of baking hot weather, then we get a thunderstorm then it’s nice for 3 or 4 days, and then it’ll bake again.”
So of course I ask for how long the hot weather will stay roasting Edmonton, the bad news for England is that the hot, and I mean hot, weather is here until at least Thursday. England play Japan on Wednesday.
When I chatted to coach Mark Sampson he wasn’t too concerned by the heat, saying it was the same for both sides and that his team had now played their last two games, against Norway in Ottawa and Canada in Vancouver when it was very hot.
But it just feels a little different here. It’s completely flat, other than a river running through Downtown, we’re miles from the sea and there’s little breeze. The heat could be a factor on Wednesday. It’s stifling.
Onto the subject of destiny then. Mark Sampson hasn’t mentioned that word once to me in the seven months I’ve known him. I’ve lost touch of how many times I’ve interviewed him and as we are both Welshman we have our little chit chats about all things from the Land of Our Father’s and we get along okay.
But never has he ever said to me, it’s England’s destiny to reach a World Cup Final. Until just now.
He’s said it twice now. Firstly straight after they beat Canada and not long ago standing outside their team hotel in downtown Edmonton.
I asked him to explain, so he did, saying: “This team has been through hell and back, we’ve asked them to buy into this, we’ve asked their families to buy into what we are trying to achieve here, there is a sense that it is our destiny. They are sacrificing a lot, that’s why I have no doubt come Wednesday we will be fully prepared, fully focussed on Japan and that our minds shall not wander.”
Blimey he nearly had tears in my eyes. Move over Winston Churchill, Sampson has the gift of the gab here. Motivation cannot be a problem in that England dressing room. It’s always an emotionally calculated, yet fully fuelled volley of words.
Even if he doesn’t believe what he is saying (and I am sure he does by the way) he can persuade others to buy into what he has to say. And that is a powerful tool to possess. At 32, Sampson is too young to know everything, it’s just impossible, However he has prepared meticulously for this World Cup and in a result’s driven industry that football is, he is so far succeeding.
So what do England now do? Well it’s rest and recovery to the fore. Training will be pretty minimal compared with some of their earlier sessions here in Canada.
Team meetings where tactics will be discussed, team selection and the role of the substitutes will all come over the course of the next 24 hours.
Injuries can affect even the most talented of squad's chances of doing well during a tournament and England thus far have endured few injuries, and that is to a degree ironic, as when Sampson selected his squad in May overlooking Trafalgar Square in London, he knew several of squad were injured and incapable of playing a game right there and then.
Luck or whatever you want to call it has been on his side… Along with a very good medical and physio team as niggling knocks, aches and pains are inevitable.
