Meet the experts: Gemma Grainger

Grainger has been coaching for 22 years, including 11 years with England’s women’s youth teams, and has coached at seven major tournaments, including the 2014 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup and the 2016 FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup.  She was also part of England’s senior women’s coaching team for the UEFA European Championships in 2017. She has been a UEFA Pro Licence holder since 2016 and has a coaching degree from Teeside University. 

Grainger was also part of UEFA’s Technical Study Group for the Women’s European Championships in 2022. As she explains, she is keen to see if trends from that tournament transfer to the World Cup. 

“The standard and quality of the games in the Euros was really very high and we saw big teams exit the competition earlier than expected, and it is likely we will see similar in this World Cup. The games are fast-paced and very competitive”, she commented. 

“Many teams will have longer travel both to this tournament and during it, and managing those elements will be a real but important challenge. It will be interesting to see how teams analyse the impact of travel on performance and how they manage it. 

“The games in the Euros were very tactical and we saw teams demonstrating an ability to change tactically earlier in the games, so this is an area I am keen to see. When the changes were made from the sideline, the teams demonstrated an ability to adjust quickly and that was very interesting. Being able to make five substitutions encourages earlier changes, so I think in-game changes will be important.”

Grainger will observe matches in Melbourne and Brisbane.