King’s Queens Chase Semi Spot

The Republic of Ireland women’s U17 side take on Japan tonight in the FIFA Women’s World Cup quarter-final in Trinidad, kick off is at midnight. The game will be streamed live by RTE.ie and will also be shown live on Eurosport while there will also be live text commentary available on FAI.ie.

Ireland go into the quarter-finals in superb form following their emergence from Group D as winners ahead of Brazil, Canada and Ghana. Ireland suffered a 2-1 defeat to Brazil in the opening game but they got their World Cup dream back on track with two successive victories over North American Champions, Canada (1-0) and Ghana (3-0).

Japan also go into the game in confident form following two 6-0 victories over Venezuela and New Zealand respectively after their opening 4-1 loss to European Champions, Spain.

Speaking on the eve of the World Cup quarter-final clash, Republic of Ireland manager, Noel King said, “ Since our arrival at the tournament, we have been scouting and monitoring a number of teams, including Japan. We have already seen them play twice and have been looking at the dvd’s from their previous games. There is no doubt that they will be a massive test for our side as they possess a different threat to our team which we may not have encountered in the World Cup so far. They are an incredibly strong side who like to play free flowing, attacking football and after scoring 13 goals in the last three games, there’s no doubt that they will be dangerous in front of goal. At this stage of the competition, I think everyone knows the style of football that we possess, we will not be changing our system at this stage because I believe it will allow us to get at Japan both defensively and in attack. We also have a number of small knocks in the camp but hopefully the players will recover in time to face Japan,” said King.

King added, “All of the girls are extremely excited about qualifying for this stage of the competition. It is a historic moment for women’s football in Ireland and no matter what the outcome of this game, we have already made history but I know that the girls just want to go the whole way to the final at this stage, such is the confidence in the squad. Emerging from a group ahead of Brazil, Canada and Ghana was always going to be a massive task and to be honest, nobody here expected us to top the group ahead of those world class teams. Those results have given the whole group the confidence which is required at this level and I really believe that the girls are not finished just yet,” he said.

Bob "The Voice" McKenzie Twitter: @BobTheVoice About: