A late Gothic weigh-house sits in the middle of Deventer’s handsome main square. Alongside it hangs a copper cauldron once used to perform gruesome executions involving miscreants being submerged in boiling water.
Happily behavioural norms in this charming former Hanseatic trading town on the river Ijssel in the Netherlands are much modified these days. Even so, should the simmering verbal contretemps between Mark Sampson and Olivier Echouafni spill over into the technical area on Sunday night, there would surely be few objections to a vat of iced water being chucked over the pair.
England’s coach warmed up for their Euro 2017 quarter-final by claiming his France counterpart is “wet behind the ears”. It was in response to Echouafni’s suggestion that the Lionesses would “not want to play” an “unstoppable” Les Bleues ensemble and provoked Sampson into issuing a reminder that his record with the Lionesses at major tournaments is infinitely superior to that of Sunday evening’s relatively recently appointed opponent.
Considering England have not beaten France since 1974 and Sampson has, so far, failed to defeat them in five attempts – the last two with Echouafni in the adjacent dug-out – his inflammatory comments raised eyebrows, not to mention jokes about the imminent mobilisation of UN peacekeeping forces.
“Of course some people won’t like it,” said Sampson. “But if we’re challenged, we’re going to fight back. That’s the mentality we’ve got. That’s the type of team we want to be, a team that, if there’s a challenge ahead, we meet it head on. We want to make sure that, if there’s a loose ball on Sunday, we scrap for it.
“With every game there’s an element of emotional and psychological challenge but, if you talk about qualities such as belief and confidence to get the job done, then there’s no doubt in our minds that those qualities are exceptionally strong in this England team. I have full faith in our ability to find a way to win any match against anybody.
“Of course we respect France. They’ve got some unbelievable individual talent. They’ve got players with numerous Champions League medals but tournament football is when we’re at our best. We’ve shown that at the last World Cup, where we won the bronze medal, and in this event we have three wins under our belt.”
In contrast Echouafni – a former player for Nice and Marseille and, briefly, manager of the Amiens and Sochaux men’s teams who, at 44, is a decade Sampson’s senior – led Les Bleues to only one win as France finished second in their group. By way of complicating his task Wendie Renard’s suspension deprives him of his star central defender against an England attack led by the outstanding Jodie Taylor.
“I defy anyone to say we can’t beat France now,” said Sampson, who is delighted that Eve Périsset, another defender, is also banned. “We should take a lot of confidence from people saying England are favourites going into this game. I believe my players are becoming experts at finding ways to win big games when it really matters.”
After scoring 10 goals and conceding one as Scotland, Spain and Portugal were beaten in the group stage, confidence is understandably high among a side in which Jordan Nobbs has excelled in midfield. “I’ve been really pleased with the balance of our play,” Sampson said. “Our efficiency, in both attack and defence, has been outstanding. We’ve limited our opponents to a very small number of shots on our goal, let alone shots on target. We conceded a goal [against Portugal] against the run of play but in general our goalkeeper hasn’t really had a save to make.
“And we’ve scored a variety of goals. We’ve been a huge threat from set pieces, we’ve been a real threat on the counter-attack and we’ve shown that we can score by both moving the ball from back to front very quickly and moving it with a number of passes from side to side before going back into the middle and finishing.”
Sampson’s faith in his Lionesses is such that he claimed “to fall asleep” while watching Germany – a side aiming for a seventh consecutive European Championship triumph – in the group stage and had “much better things to do” than watch France live on television last week.
When not showing off this ostensibly laidback facade, he has been assiduous about assuming the moral high ground. In a not so subtle attempt to influence the referee, the Welshman prefaced England’s meeting with Spain by condemning that country’s propensity for footballing “dark arts” but his words should not be viewed in stark isolation.
In person England’s engaging coach possesses considerably more humour and humility than his public utterances might suggest. If the revelation that his partner and eight-month-old daughter have based themselves at a camp site near Utrecht because “hotels are too expensive for me” was tongue in cheek, the same goes for a reflection that the two haircuts he has had in the Netherlands were “botched” because “they didn’t know who I was!”
There is a sense that, at least in part, the mind games with Echouafni are being conducted in similar vein. “There’s a time to have a right good scrap,” said Sampson. “But when the final whistle goes you have a hug and wish each other all the best. I’m sure that will happen on Sunday.”
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