Football: WALES IN U17 TEAM TRIUMPH.
Byline: MARK CURRIEWALES have qualified for the second stage of the UEFA under-17 soccer championships for the first time following a clean sweep of victories in their Group 5 qualifying programme in Luxembourg.
The youngsters, managed by Peter Nicholas, beat Norway 3-2 in their opening match and booked their place in the second round with a 1-0 win against the host country on Thursday evening.
With two countries making progress, table-topping Wales rounded off their fixtures on Saturday with a 2-1 win against Bosnia-Herzegovina, who lost all their games to finish bottom of the four-team group.
Wrexham youngster Levi Mackin played in the final match, in which Wales' goals were scored by Everton's Morgan Jones and Scott Richards, who is unattached.
Wales and Norway go through to the second qualifying stage in March next year and one of the tournament favourites, Spain, will definitely be in the same four-team group as Wales.
The Wales women's under-19 squad begin their UEFA Championship qualifying programme in Finland this week with matches against Estonia, Turkey and the host nation in the space of five days.
Bangor City Ladies provide three members of manager Andy Beattie's squad in Nicola Davies, Katie Williams and Kelly Davies, while Farrar Road team-mate Ailsa Orlik is on stand-by.
Wales warmed up for the tournament by competing in the Jubilee Cup last week when they beat Northern Ireland but lost to Scotland and they are the lowest seed in their qualifying group.
But Beattie said: ``We played some excellent football in Northern Ireland and we hope to take what we've learned from that experience with us to Finland. It's going to be hard because we have to play three games in five days and the players are bound to be tired.''
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| Publication: | Daily Post (Liverpool, England) |
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| Geographic Code: | 4EUUW |
| Date: | Sep 30, 2002 |
| Words: | 293 |
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