At 5pm today, England’s women will line up against six time champions Germany in the Euro 2009 final in Helsinki, Finland. Sportsister spoke to Kelly Smith at the England camp.

On the opposition, six time European champions, Germany: They’re a really good outfit. They’re reigning World and European champions and they’ve dominated the women’s games for a number of years.

They’re the kind of team that you kind of aspire to be like.

On England’s big chance: We feel like this is our best chance to beat them. We haven’t played our best football in this tournament so far but we have still reached the final.

We’re hoping that our performance on Thursday night will be the right performance. We feel like the tactics that we’ve got in place are very attack minded.

We’ve got to the final and now we want to make history and win the game.

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On pre tournament aspirations: The management and the players definitely thought it (reaching the final) was a possibility. Obviously we weren’t coming out and saying that in the press. Our main objective was to get out of the group. Then we took each game as it came, and focused on winning that game.

But we don’t just want be in the final and be happy with that, we want to make an impact and win this game.

On the biggest game of her career: I’ve played in FA Cup finals and in the UEFA Cup final when I played for Arsenal and they were very big games domestically. But internationally this is by far the biggest achievement.

But I don’t just want to be happy with this, I want us to put in a good performance and be crowned the European Champions.

On skipper Faye White’s fitness, who fractured her cheek bone in the quarter finals: She has done light training the last couple of days. Her mask has been delivered to the hotel today (Wednesday) from England, so she’ll be training tonight in the mask just to get her ready for the game.

On playing her club football in the USA: Playing professional means you focus playing every day, and are not committed to another job. I feel like my fitness has got better. Technically I have become more astute and better on the ball.

The five of us that have play in America are really a lot more confident. We feel like we’ve helped the (England) team by being more confident and fitter and ready to go.

On having a tailored women’s football kit to play in: This kit has been made to measure, to fit our own body shapes. It is so nice to wear a kit that is perfecatly fitted to your size. If you‘ve got the right kit on then you are going to go out and perform better.

Louise Hudson, Sportsister
The Women’s Sports Magazine

The England Women’s football kit has been tailored to fit each individual player and will be available in women’s sizes for the first time, priced from £50. For further information please visit www.umbro.com