NORFOLK, Va. – ODU women’s soccer head coach, Angie Hind, as well as associate head coach, Michelle Barr, will serve as scouts for the Scottish national team in the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France. The 2019 Women’s World Cup begins today and will run until July 7.
Hind and Barr were asked to serve as scouts by the Scottish Football Association. Serving as scouts entails travelling to various games and analyzing next and potential opponents for the Scottish National team. They will also help guide a steering group of Scottish Club coaches who will be over to analyze some of the games and receive coaching education.
“This is first of all a fantastic spectacle to be a part of as this year, without a doubt will be the most competitive and most watched women’s world cup ever,” explained Hind. “The game has seen fantastic growth even in the past five years and with that has seen so many professional and full-time opportunities for females to now go on and live their dreams. They have sold over one million tickets already so that provides some indication.”
The 2019 Cup is being tagged everywhere as the most competitive Women’s World Cup to date due to the incredible growth in the women’s game across Europe, especially in the past four years. ODU has benefited from this growth with two of this years senior class now playing professionally in Iceland and Sweden, respectively.
Scotland has qualified for the first time ever and will kick off their campaign with a game against England on June 9th.
“I am so proud of our national team to have qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever and therefore delighted that Michelle and I can help them in any way we can,” Hind continued. “We have such a talented squad and despite having a very challenging group stage having drawn England and Japan, the quality, especially in our attack is really exciting.”
Hind has worked with many of the players in Scottish national team in her former role as Assistant National Coach, as well as coaching some of the players through youth and club levels also. Barr also has experience with many of the players, as she coached them at the youth national level. Barr was also a former Captain and long-standing player for the Scottish national team with 84 international appearances.
“We will basically travel from game to game, analyzing future opponents and potential next round opponents and be able to provide detail scouting information to the national coaching staff,” Hind said. “I’m also so excited to meet up with the team and pass on my well wishes as so many of these players I have known, and coached as they have come through the youth teams and to see them now competing on the world stage is fantastic.”
“Ironically, our ODU mascot is the lion, which is also the symbol for Scotland - Navy certainly is the color we are very proud to wear!”