South Africa’s most qualified women’s soccer coach, Fran Hilton-Smith, is back from Russia, where she was appointed to be on world governing body, FIFA’s technical study group during the Under-20 Women’s World Cup.
Hilton-Smith, also team manager of our national women’s soccer team (Banyana Banyana) worked with six other top women’s coaches on the technical panel, an experience which taught her valuable lessons about the state of women’s soccer internationally.
“Our role was to write the technical report of the championships, focusing on all aspects -formations, substitutions, overall performance, tactics, coaching trends. We also interviewed team coaches, and attended training sessions It was an amazing experience.”
This was Hilton-Smith’s 4th inclusion on the FIFA Technical Study Group. She also wrote the reports 1st u19 women’s world cup in Canada in 2002, the 2003 senior women’s world cup in the USA and the last Olympic games in Greece.
Hilton-Smith was impressed with the Asian teams at the under-20 women’s world cup in Russia.
“The emergence of the Asian teams has to be noted and studied. I have always predicted that they would one day emerge as top teams and had my money on China at the last senior women’s world cup in 2003 but they did not achieve then.
“Now the dream has come true. Korea DPR finished winners with China in 2nd position. This is the first time in the history of football that two Asians teams have taken the top two positions.”
Hilton-Smith said that what made Asia strong was their total dedication and commitment, strict discipline, lots of work on physique and strength, good preparation, and top coaches.
“We can learn a lot from this. Our physical strength, men and women, is not anything like it should be, compared to the rest of the world’s top teams. We don’t have that discipline and work ethic – the commitment to win at all costs.”
Hilton-Smith plans to share the information gathered in Russia with coaches here at home.
“As usual I bring home as much material as I can to distribute to all coaches in the women’s national teams, clubs, and also to any coach, male or female that wants any information.
“I also use a lot of this info also in my coaching courses for men and women as a SAFA coach educator.”
Her work in Russia will also benefit the national women’s soccer team, Banyana Banyana, ahead of the African Women’s Championship in Nigeria next month.
“I accessed all dvd’s and video footage of the games played, especially the ones pertaining to us – in this case the matches featuring Nigeria and DR Congo,” explains Hilton-Smith
“When the national players are in camp we watch these videos endlessly to study the teams. We meet Nigeria in the group stages of the upcoming AWC and also DR Congo in the next phase, so this footage will stand us in good stead.”
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