Inside the Lionesses’ talent factory: Five players to watch

England Under-23s swapped St George’s Park for Spain’s Costa del Sol and joined the senior team in a warm-weather camp.

On one side, pristine white Villas and palm trees sit in peaceful silence on a steep cliff, on the other side, the Rio Guadaiza stretches from the valley towards the Mediterranean, and in the middle lies the pristine fields of La Quinta Football. Fields. This green lawn is the factory floor of a highly competitive production line that produces lionesses for one week only.

“Okay, let’s look at that midfield shape,” shouts England Under-23 team head coach Emma Coates as she briefly stops training practice and positions herself between the centre-backs to get the vantage point she wants. Playing style is very important because it is part of the DNA that the FA want to see in a Lioness.

“We have an internal plan for success: the playing and coaching curriculum and working philosophy of all our teams in England starts with the under-15s and one of the golden points here is how we want to play the game.” Kay Cossington, the FA’s women’s coach, speaks to a number of journalists covering the pitch at La Quinta.

“In the Under-23s it’s not necessarily about one team winning three points. Of course we teach players to win, that goes without saying, but it’s about carefully managing the transition of each of these individuals from the senior levels up and back. Some get international senior team promotion. They can feel it, they can touch it, they are a part of it. “This is about preparing them to be able to perform on the world stage.”

On Sunday alone, four of the Under-23s were invited to train with Sarina Wiegman’s senior squad: Chelsea’s Aggie Beever-Jones, Manchester City’s Laura Blindkilde Brown, Bristol City’s Naomi Layzell and Tottenham Hotspur’s Jess Naz. And Cossington believes there is huge value in senior internationals coming through the youth pathway.

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“As FIFA, we are relieved and proud of this.” [Women’s] We were the only country to have all 23 players restricted to youth at last summer’s World Cup [international] “We should be proud of the system we have created,” he said. “This did not happen just last year. This is a 10-15 year work.”

Coates’ young players lost 3-1 to world champions Spain in Marbella on Thursday, but the former Doncaster Rovers Belles manager said his team had gone “toe to toe” with Spain and he passionately believed he had senior stars of the future in his squad.

Telegraph Sport is recruiting five players to monitor the future.

Aggie Beever-Jones (20)

Chelsea forward Beever-Jones is arguably the closest to making a big breakthrough, having been called up to the senior team bench from the U23s for the Lionesses’ 7-2 win over Austria on Friday.

The former Bristol City and Everton loanee has had the chance to play for Emma Hayes’ first team and has scored five goals in 10 appearances in the Women’s Super League this season.

The reason Coates describes the joint warm-weather camp so passionately is because he’s on Wiegman’s side. He said: “I say it’s like touching fire because they can feel the heat and say, ‘Okay, these are the things that need to be done to get to the next step.’ This is really important.”

Michelle Agyemang (18)

Not yet with the Under-23s, but Arsenal’s Agyemang, who plays with the Under-19s, about 500km east of Alicante. The youngster scored twice in Saturday’s 3-2 defeat against France in the opening Under-19 match of the La Nucia youth tournament; He also sent this long-range striker into the net:

Injury has restricted Agyemang to just five Championship appearances so far this season, but that has failed to keep him from scoring four league goals and he is one of the country’s brightest prospects.

Naomi Layzell (19)

The first of Coates’ Under-23 players to be asked to train with Wiegman’s seniors after arriving in Marbella was Bristol City centre-back Layzell. Layzell volunteered to help children learn to read at his local school in Bristol.

She’s the one learning in Spain, particularly from listening to former England centre-half Anita Asante, who is part of Coates’ coaching staff including current Birmingham City midfielder Remi Allen and former Aston Villa head coach Gemma Davies.

On Asante’s guidance, Layzell said: “He is there to support you and give you the extra details you need. Especially as a centre-back, body shape and positioning are very important and he has experienced this, so only he can give the best information. It just means the feedback can be personalized or ‘this is that extra 1 percent you can do off the ball’ so you can be in a better position. “He has the best experiences and wants to pass that on.”

Missy Bo Kearns (22)

Bo Kearns, the hard-nosed Red Missy who captained Coates’ Under-23s and had a good season at Liverpool, describes fellow Scouser Alex Greenwood as her “big sister” and believes the joint training camp in February could inspire the group: “This will give you It gives your lip that extra bite and desire to push.

“It’s an incredible experience for all of us to get a little taste of what it’s like and where we want to be. That’s a little extra motivation.

“Nobody enjoys it too much and everyone benefits from the opportunity and experience we get. We have a style of play – I think it’s very good in that sense [of] where we reflect them. “It will make life easier in the future.”

Ruby Bun (20)

Seen by some as a long-term successor to Keira Walsh in the England midfield position, Manchester City midfielder Mace thrived during his loan spell at Leicester City last season and looks set to be at the heart of what the Under-23s are trying to do this season it seems. property.

“Everything we do is an imitation of what the seniors do,” Mace told Telegraph Sport. “It’s nice to see what they’re doing [the seniors] We work to fulfill the expectations we need to get there, and we all want to get there.

The senior Lionesses watched from the stands of the Marbella Football Centre, a short drive down the valley from La Quinta, and many were seen chatting full-time with the Under-23s. The lads’ training schedule meant they were unable to attend England’s match against Austria in Algeciras, about an hour’s drive away, but they watched from afar after a group barbecue.

Cossington wants Under-23 Euros

In Coates’ side’s next match on Monday, they face the Netherlands in the new European Under-23 league, which the FA has been pushing hard to see created for this specific age group. England are so far unbeaten in this league – Thursday’s clash with Spain was a friendly – and Cossington said: “We all recognized that there was a gap in the provision of major competitions on the women’s pathway, from the transition pathway to the first team. [with] The Under-20 World Cup is obviously the last phase of this path. We felt it was really important to provide a good competitive element to develop players into senior players and continue to fill the gap in the senior team environment.

“In terms of what the differences are at the moment, as you know there are good levels of competition in the 17s, 19s and 20s in terms of European and World Cups and my personal view is that the 23s are the difference at the moment.”

For the future, Cossington believes an official European Championship for the Under-23s is the way forward, adding: “Ideally we would prefer the Under-23 Euros. This would be utopia for us.

“A lot of countries would be willing to take part in that. I also believe it’s a bit of a ‘chicken and egg’ scenario. I think if there is a competition you’ll start to see other FAs investing in the Under-23s. So I think that will help grow the game as well.”