England’s U18 girls will play Ireland in the last of their matches in the European Youth Nations Championships in Edinburgh with, according to our calculations, a real chance of a gold medal. The promotion pool is currently led by Germany, who carry over one point from their Pool B match against England, and who added three more points and a massive goal difference by beating Ireland 10-0 this afternoon. England boosted their chances of winning gold by a surprising 2-1 win over the Netherlands, with goals from Sarah Page and Amy Turnbull. England will face Ireland tomorrow (Saturday), who have not scored since Tuesday and will no doubt be recovering from today’s experience. The rules of this competition are quite convoluted but we reckon that a win against Ireland tomorrow will give England the gold if the Netherlands win or draw against Germany.
We’ve also had our pocket calculators out for the boy’s competition where England were beaten 3-0 by Germany today. The other promotion pool match between the Netherlands and Belgium ended 7-3. England play the Netherlands tomorrow. If England beat the Dutch, and Belgium beat the Germans, a silver medal beckons. As neither seems a likely outcome, England may be able to salvage a bronze provided that the Germans give the Belgians a mauling and England keep the goal margin down against the Dutch.
