Anna Signeul interview: Scotland’s future

Tony Leighton interviews Scotland head coach Anna Signeul after a fourth-place finish at the Cyprus Cup equalled her country’s best performance in the tournament. Signeul rates the 1-1 draw with France, ranked fifteen places above Scotland, among her best results, and argues that beating the Netherlands and Australia and drawing with South Korea, all higher-ranked, shows real progress in speed, strength and stamina. She explains how a GBP200,000 sportscotland grant has been used to negotiate reduced working hours with players’ employers, allowing strength and conditioning four mornings a week, and welcomes rather than fears the exodus of top Scots to clubs abroad. Signeul calls automatic World Cup qualification perhaps unrealistic but the play-offs achievable, reflects on the generation of around twenty Swedish players given coach education alongside her, and calls the departures of Hope Powell and Jarmo Matikainen a loss to women’s football in the UK.