Latest news with #Wilkinson
Leader Live
5 hours ago
- Sport
- Leader Live
Wilkinson explains decision to include Ingle in Wales' squad
The 33-year-old, who has won 141 caps, suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury playing for Chelsea in a pre-season friendly last September and has been in a race against time to make next month's Euros in Switzerland. Wales boss Wilkinson said: 'We needed to make sure that Sophie was in a good place, that she's obviously still on her path to full fitness. 'But, she's in a position now where she can contribute and that was important for us. 'Just a really great mix in this squad, which I think is exciting for me, equally for the Welsh public. A wonderful representation of the country.' Defender Rhiannon Roberts is included after injury ruled her out of Nations League action last month, while veteran forward Jess Fishlock is the star name in a squad skippered by her Seattle Reign team-mate Angharad James. Wales kick-off their tournament against the Netherlands in Lucerne on July 5. Their remaining two games are in St Gallen versus France on July 9 and against reigning European champions England on July 13.
North Wales Chronicle
a day ago
- Sport
- North Wales Chronicle
I stormed up – Rhian Wilkinson reveals Wales Euros squad from top of Yr Wyddfa
At 1,085 metres above sea level, climbing Yr Wyddfa in North Wales is not for the faint-hearted. But Wilkinson trekked to the top in under 90 minutes – 'I was listening to political podcasts that were getting me angry so I stormed up,' she said – and hopes the breathtaking vistas overlooking the Eryri National Park will be matched by on-pitch sights in Switzerland. Squad announcement settings 😍🏔️ — Wales 🏴 (@Cymru) June 19, 2025 Wales may be entering their first major tournament next month as the competition's lowest-ranked team in 31st spot, but Wilkinson – the 181-times capped Canada international with Welsh ancestry – insists her players are ready to conquer 'their Everest'. 'We've used the mountain as a theme and an image throughout this campaign,' said Wilkinson, whose ties to Yr Wyddfa run deep as her parents honeymooned in the area and her family held a ceremony on the mountain in memory of her late father. 'It (qualifying) was always going to be an uphill battle with little setbacks. As we've moved towards the Euros we've talked about the summit, the Everest part of it. That something is impossible until it isn't. 'Outside Wales people can think whatever they want. Our goal is to show up and deliver to the best of our ability. I am sure people will be looking up Wales on a map very soon.' Wilkinson's squad is a mixture of young and old, with seven players having fewer than 20 caps. There also four centurions present, with star forward Jess Fishlock – 'the face of Wales', according to Wilkinson – skipper Angharad James, Sophie Ingle and Hayley Ladd. Ingle's inclusion was the main talking point as the 141-times capped former captain has not played since suffering anterior cruciate ligament damage in September. The 33-year-old midfielder has completed her recovery work at Chelsea, although she left the Women's Super League champions last month after seven years and is among five unattached players in the squad. Wilkinson said: 'We needed to make sure that Sophie was in a good place. She's still on her path to full fitness but in a position now where she can contribute, which is important for us. 'I don't want to get into it (what role Ingle will be able to play) specifically because Sophie's pushing, she's looking really good in training. 'She has to be able to contribute in some way, that was the pre-requisite that I had. 'When she was able to meet that, she was straight into the squad.' 🏴 Representing Wales in their historic #WEURO2025 campaign ✨ — UEFA Women's EURO 2025 (@WEURO2025) June 19, 2025 Wales open their campaign against the Netherlands in Lucerne on July 5 before playing France and England. Three unnamed players will be part of the training camp in Switzerland, with the squad first preparing for the Euros with a week-long stay in Portugal. 'It's felt a bit heavy,' Wilkinson said about squad selection. 'You know when you've those big decisions looming you're going to hurt someone. 'It's the worst part of a dream job. For these people it's their dream and can push them onto great things.'
South Wales Guardian
a day ago
- Sport
- South Wales Guardian
I stormed up – Rhian Wilkinson reveals Wales Euros squad from top of Yr Wyddfa
At 1,085 metres above sea level, climbing Yr Wyddfa in North Wales is not for the faint-hearted. But Wilkinson trekked to the top in under 90 minutes – 'I was listening to political podcasts that were getting me angry so I stormed up,' she said – and hopes the breathtaking vistas overlooking the Eryri National Park will be matched by on-pitch sights in Switzerland. Squad announcement settings 😍🏔️ — Wales 🏴 (@Cymru) June 19, 2025 Wales may be entering their first major tournament next month as the competition's lowest-ranked team in 31st spot, but Wilkinson – the 181-times capped Canada international with Welsh ancestry – insists her players are ready to conquer 'their Everest'. 'We've used the mountain as a theme and an image throughout this campaign,' said Wilkinson, whose ties to Yr Wyddfa run deep as her parents honeymooned in the area and her family held a ceremony on the mountain in memory of her late father. 'It (qualifying) was always going to be an uphill battle with little setbacks. As we've moved towards the Euros we've talked about the summit, the Everest part of it. That something is impossible until it isn't. 'Outside Wales people can think whatever they want. Our goal is to show up and deliver to the best of our ability. I am sure people will be looking up Wales on a map very soon.' Wilkinson's squad is a mixture of young and old, with seven players having fewer than 20 caps. There also four centurions present, with star forward Jess Fishlock – 'the face of Wales', according to Wilkinson – skipper Angharad James, Sophie Ingle and Hayley Ladd. Ingle's inclusion was the main talking point as the 141-times capped former captain has not played since suffering anterior cruciate ligament damage in September. The 33-year-old midfielder has completed her recovery work at Chelsea, although she left the Women's Super League champions last month after seven years and is among five unattached players in the squad. Wilkinson said: 'We needed to make sure that Sophie was in a good place. She's still on her path to full fitness but in a position now where she can contribute, which is important for us. 'I don't want to get into it (what role Ingle will be able to play) specifically because Sophie's pushing, she's looking really good in training. 'She has to be able to contribute in some way, that was the pre-requisite that I had. 'When she was able to meet that, she was straight into the squad.' 🏴 Representing Wales in their historic #WEURO2025 campaign ✨ — UEFA Women's EURO 2025 (@WEURO2025) June 19, 2025 Wales open their campaign against the Netherlands in Lucerne on July 5 before playing France and England. Three unnamed players will be part of the training camp in Switzerland, with the squad first preparing for the Euros with a week-long stay in Portugal. 'It's felt a bit heavy,' Wilkinson said about squad selection. 'You know when you've those big decisions looming you're going to hurt someone. 'It's the worst part of a dream job. For these people it's their dream and can push them onto great things.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Rhian Wilkinson, Wales' highest mountain and a Euro 2025 squad announcement with a difference
Rhian Wilkinson didn't tell anyone. The Wales Women's manager just woke up and left with the sunrise, bound for the top of Wales' highest peak, Yr Wyddfa. Wilkinson knows this mountain well (known as 'Snowdon' in English). She was born in Canada, but her family relocated to Cowbridge, Wales, where her mum, Shan, is originally from, for a year when she was eight — the same age she first went up Yr Wyddfa — before moving back to Canada permanently. They would travel to Wales quite a lot after that. Advertisement The former Canada international's parents were married in the pub at the bottom, with their honeymoon spent at the top. And just beneath the summit, overlooking the mountain's west side, is where Wilkinson held a ceremony for her father, Keith, the former head coach of Canada's national rugby team, after his passing six months before she was named Wales head coach at the end of February 2024. It's here where runs into Wilkinson before the train of assembled media and Football Association of Wales (FAW) representatives arrive for Wales' Euro 2025 squad announcement. 'My dad used to make me visualise as a kid,' Wilkinson says as the wind whips across scrags of rock. 'He tried all the time going to training, going to games, in the car. He'd be like, 'Can you picture yourself? Can you feel the grass?' I'm like, 'Oh God, shut up'. Even now, it drives me wild.' Advertisement Wilkinson is smiling because, you know what, maybe the visualisation thing works. On her first national camp, Wilkinson showed the squad a photo of Yr Wyddfa with the Euro 2025 qualifying matches assembled in an upward trajectory to the summit imposed over the top. The Wales badge sat at the mountain's base. 'At first, we were like: 'What is this?'' says goalkeeper Olivia Clark, laughing. 'But then we began making it up the mountain. Now we have posters of it dotted around the food room, the training room. It's this metaphor.' And maybe it's the thinning oxygen at 1,085 meters (3,560 feet), but there lurks an irrepressible urge to make obvious poetry: this being Wales Women's final summit before their first major tournament summit. A manifestation of the team's grisly, uphill battle — first for recognition, then for funding, then for qualification for Euro 2025 — finally conquered. Today, Wilkinson and her squad stand atop their own history and can look out to the vastness beyond. To new mountains to be scaled. If you squint hard enough, you can even see Switzerland. Advertisement That last part isn't true (you can see Bangor and, apparently, the coast of Ireland on a good day). And while the gloriously hot sunshine and baby blue skies feels like an omen — the FAW and weather gods somehow complicit in wishing the team good fortune — a mountain is also a good place to be reminded of one's size. Wales are the tournament's lowest-ranked squad (30), with a group consisting of the Netherlands (11th in rankings), France (10th) and England (fifth). They are one of two major tournament debutants, alongside Poland. There is a nine per cent chance of Wales making it out of the group, according to Opta. But at 8:45am the boldness of the setting is dizzying; the sensation of feeling puny, in the ascent and, eventually, from the top, inescapable. 'I love heights,' says Wilkinson, who led Portland Thorns to the 2022 NWSL Championship in her first year in charge at the club. 'In Vancouver, I live on a mountain. I like the exertion of climbing, the fatigue. I beat everyone up here. They didn't even know they were racing me.' Advertisement There's a temerity in forcing assembled media to the top of a mountain before 9am for a squad announcement, a boldness in preparing to defy the fickleness of Welsh weather in the summer and internet signal at 1,000ft above sea level, that is not readily synonymous with Wales. But the boldness is welcomed. The FAW is the third-oldest football association in the world. Yet a national women's football team was not formed until 1973, three years after the near 50-year ban of women's football in the nation was lifted. The FAW refused to formerly recognise the women's national team until 1993, a 20-year window in which the team suffered countless 'deaths' according to players from the time, the result of volunteer energy and benevolence running dry. Ten years after recognition was granted, funding for the senior women's team was cut for three years amid the men's team's Euro 2004 qualification campaign. Advertisement But always by some divinity (or, let's call it by its real name, the stubbornness of women), the team resuscitated. 'It's the mentality of the why not,' Wilkinson says. 'People outside of Wales can think whatever you want, they can look at rankings. Our goal is to be really present and deliver to the best of our ability. 'People will be looking up Wales on a map soon.' Wilkinson's squad is as strong as it can be. Sophie Ingle's inclusion is a boon, the former Chelsea midfielder having returned to fitness after tearing her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in a pre-season friendly against Feyenoord last September. Advertisement The remaining faces are familiar: Seattle Reign and Wales centurion Jess Fishlock, fellow Reign team-mate Angharad James-Turner, Leicester City forward Hannah Cain, Everton defender Hayley Ladd. And for any potential claims of big-headedness that might come with making assembled media scale a mountain (most actually took the train, though did not) before 9am, there's a still a palpable humility. As Wilkinson waits at the top for the entourage to arrive, three members of the Swiss embassy to the UK stand near her. When they clock her Wales-branded trousers, one asks: 'You're the head coach?' She nods. She obliges with a photograph, answers questions of her nerve. Advertisement While walking to the top (accomplished in 'just under an hour and a half' she says with no air of bravado), she listened to The New York Times' Daily podcast, happy to have time to herself. 'I actually debated whether I listen to anything, and I decided I'm going to listen to something because I feel ready.' Full squad: Goalkeepers: Olivia Clark (Leicester City), Safia Middleton-Patel (Manchester United), Poppy Soper (Unattached) Defenders: Charlie Estcourt (DC Power), Gemma Evans (Liverpool), Josie Green (Crystal Palace), Hayley Ladd (Everton), Esther Morgan (Sheffield United), Ella Powell (Bristol City), Rhiannon Roberts (Unattached), Lily Woodham (Seattle Reign) Advertisement Midfielders: Jess Fishlock (Seattle Reign), Alice Griffiths (Unattached), Ceri Holland (Liverpool), Sophie Ingle (Unattached), Angharad James (Seattle Reign), Lois Joel (Newcastle United) Forwards: Rachel Rowe (Southampton), Kayleigh Barton (Unattached), Hannah Cain (Leicester City), Elise Hughes (Crystal Palace), Carrie Jones (IFK Norrköping), Ffion Morgan (Bristol City). This article originally appeared in The Athletic. Wales, UK Women's Football, Women's Euros 2025 The Athletic Media Company
Wales Online
a day ago
- Sport
- Wales Online
Wales manager hikes Snowdon on her own at dawn to deliver historic announcement
Wales manager hikes Snowdon on her own at dawn to deliver historic announcement Wales boss Rhian Wilkinson just decided she was going to head up herself on that very morning. Wales manager Rhian Wilkinson climbed the mountain to deliver her press conference (Image: FAW ) Wales manager Rhian Wilkinson scaled Yr Wyddfa on her own ahead of the squad announcement for Euro 2025. With the European Championships just over two weeks away, Wilkinson announced her 23-player collective from Eryri National Park, and more specifically - the summit of the highest peak. The press, along with the FAW media team, Rhiannon Roberts and Olivia Clark took the train to the top, but Wales boss Wilkinson decided she would go one better and climb the mountain herself at the crack of dawn. For everyone else, it was a 7.30am departure from Llanberis train station, a one hour journey in total, ready for the announcement at 9am from Hafod Eryri - the epic viewpoint atop the mountain. For Wilkinson though, she was already there at 7.15am, book in hand and welcomed by a truly glorious north Walian morning - and it took her only 90 minutes. Having visited Eryri National Park on multiple occasions as a child, she has fond memories of the area, which reminds her of her late father. Her parents spent their honeymoon there and a ceremony was held at Yr Wyddfa following his passing. For Wales, the location of the announcement was a symbolisation of the recent ascent of Welsh women's football, making it to their first ever major tournament. Article continues below Wilkinson's solo journey may have presented an opportunity to truly reflect on the recent success of the team, shortly before the media storm began. However, with such a busy schedule, it was a welcome change of pace in the chaos, so she put on a political podcast and got moving. The Wales squad announcement was made in a unique way. (Image: FAW ) It was a stunning day in the national park. (Image: FAW ) "I actually debated whether I was going to listen to something," she began. "I feel ready. I'm excited, but not over-excited. I know I'll be nervous, I know the team will be nervous, but I'm not overwhelmed by it. "With this walk, I knew it was going to be special but I didn't realise how many people were going to be here. I think it's fantastic. "I just caught up on things because it's been a really heavy week. We had a training camp last week, this week. I had a Senedd event on Tuesday. On Monday we were finalising gameplans. "My days have been so long. It's just been nice, more than anything, to just walk on my own and not think about the the tournament. "Just listening to political podcasts and catching up on the news, because I've been out of it! The same stuff and unfortunately... Trump!" Article continues below Angharad James will skipper her country in Switzerland, and is one of four centurions named, alongside Jess Fishlock, Hayley Ladd and Sophie Ingle. Ingle makes her return after missing the entire season with a serious knee injury, which she sustained while playing for Chelsea in a pre-season friendly last September.
