Torske taking Norway forward

The list of UEFA European Women's Under-19 Championship winners contains one notable absentee. While Germany, Sweden, Denmark and France are all among those on the roll of honour, Norway – former world and European champions at senior level – are yet to take the youth crown.

Semi-final run
Charged with correcting that is coach Jarl Torske, who in 13 years at the Norwegian Football Federation was most notably assistant to Per-Mathias Høgmo in the 2000 Olympic games victory and led his country to U19 finals in 2001 and 2003 as well as the 2007 last four. This season his side has struck 19 goals without reply in first qualifying round games against Moldova, Slovenia and the Netherlands, and in April they will travel to Portugal to meet the hosts, Ukraine and Italy for a place in the French-hosted finals. "They're all very good teams, especially Italy of course, but all in all I'm quite pleased with the draw," Torske told uefa.com.

Growing team
Last season’s experience was vital, because unlike some of their rivals Norway can still call on the same set of players. "We were very pleased to reach the semi-finals," Torske said. "We had a young team – we have exactly the same team this year as well. But we produced a disappointing performance against England in the semi-finals [losing 3-0]. Nevetheless, all in all, we came back from Iceland pretty satisfied."

Winter warm-up
Torske's team will reassemble next month for their traditional appearance at the La Manga tournament, taking on Hungary, Finland and Poland. However, they do not have to spend their whole winter abroad to tune up. "In Norway, you can play football all year round in huge indoor arenas with artificial grass," Torske said. "The conditions are absolutely superb, so you can play the same kind of football in January as in April, because the association has put so much money into these new installations."

Room for improvement
Germany have been U19 champions for the last two years and beat Norway to win the last senior European title in 2005. So how can Torske's nation catch the leading world force? "We've got to start working even harder, when players are even younger, getting players to exercise on their skills, basic skills and passing skills and encouraging grassroots football, because that's where all these young players come from," said Torske. "I'm sure the development will continue. There are a lot of good coaches getting into the system, players are starting to get their football education when they're quite young, but all in all we still have to work even harder on the basic technical skills, because that's where, I think, that the Germans and the French are ahead of us."