A SUCCESSFUL ENGLISH TEAM; A WELSH MANAGER

Steve Cooper is the coach to the England U17 squad, a team that is having remarkable success this season. Steve is WELSH and at 37 earned his trade at Wrexham, TNS, Rhyl, Bangor and Porthmadog. From 2005 he worked at the Wrexham academy, then joined Liverpool and eventually was taken into the bosom of the FA looking after the national Under 16 and now the U17s.

In recent friendly tournaments the team has been in Croatia, beating the home side 5-0, Greece 3-0 and Germany...wait for it 8-1.
In the Algarve tournament his team beat Portugal 1-0, Germany 3-2 and the Netherlands 1-0.

They have recently won 3/3 in the European Championship Qualifying Round (Austria 3-2, Azerbaijan 2-0 and against hosts Romania 3-0). This then took them to an Elite League where most recently the youngsters have beaten the Czech Republic 5-3, Slovenia 4-0 and hosts Bosnia 1-0.

This week they have been in Croatia, beating Norway 3-1, Ukraine 4-0 and the Netherlands 3-0 winning their group. They then met the Republic of Ireland in the 1/4s winning 1-0 and meet Turkey in the Semi today winnning 2-1. The game was on Eurosport2 and England were way ahead of the Turks at 2-0 but one thing and another slowed down their game, the Turks got better and got one back. But England stayed strong and have qualified for the Final against either Spain or Germany.

They are flying high and so is the stand out player Sancho (see left) from Manchester City.

Clubs represented in the squad are Man City 2, Tottenham 3, Chelsea 4, Wimbledon, Newcastle, Southampton, Man Utd, Everton, Liverpool, Reading and Arsenal.

England won this tournament in 2010 and 2014. Further success this season will help the squad qualify for the World Cup soon to be held  in India.