Foster 'Immensely Proud' Of The Group
- LCFC Women were beaten in the Adobe Women’s Semi-Final by Tottenham Hotspur
- Jutta Rantala opened the scoring at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
- Jessica Naz and Martha Thomas scored the decisive goals on Sunday afternoon
- I think we deserved more, says Assistant Manager Jennifer Foster
Leicester were beaten in the final four of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup during the closing stages of extra-time at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when Martha Thomas sent a looping head over Lize Kop.
Giving Spurs a good fight over 120 minutes in the capital, the First Team Assistant Manager believes City deserved more from their efforts.
“I think we’re all hugely disappointed at the minute,” Foster explained. “I said earlier it’s going to hurt and it’s probably going to hurt for a while. I’m immensely proud of this group, the effort they put in was great.
“Everything we’ve built up and put in today, I think we deserved more. But I thought the players were phenomenal today.”
Foster spoke about the emotions from the touchline towards the end of the game and into the extra half-an-hour, stating that it could’ve gone either way, but admits Thomas’ late strike was difficult to come back from.
“I suppose the later it gets into extra-time, you start thinking, okay, it’ll be penalties and you start planning for that and thinking we have great players on the pitch,” the Assistant Manager continued.
“But then there’s also that feeling that you could still win it in extra-time. Of course it’s difficult to concede in normal time, so that’s always disappointing because it never feels like there’s long left to get one back.”
In what was undoubtedly Leicester’s biggest game of their short history, the coach thought the team dealt well with the occasion, explaining how the majority of the starting XI are familiar with these situations.
“I though they dealt with it brilliantly,” Foster spoke. “We’ve got a lot of experience in this team and people forget that. Ten out of the staring XI are full internationals and have played in big stadiums.
“For me, there were no nerves with that. There was some caginess to start with but when we got Jutta [Rantala's] goal, we settled into it loads and created chances, but unfortunately couldn’t capitalise on those. I thought we looked composed in areas, and defended well on the transition, so there's positives to take.”
Leicester were the first team to celebrate in the semi-final when Finnish forward Rantala broke the deadlock with a fantastic left-footed effort from range.
Foster spoke about the feeling of the match and labelled it similar to the quarter-final clash where the No.8 scored twice to see off Liverpool.
She added: “In all honesty, it felt like the Liverpool game. The opening 15 minutes, we were finding out feet and then when Jutta scored, we managed to push on a bit.
“The game goes on and you see how many chances they left on the pitch, and you think it could be happening for us, so it was disappointing to go on and concede.
Ending on a positive, the Assistant Manager spoke about the development in the team and believes this won’t be the last time that the Foxes reach this stage of the competition.
She also had a message for the Leicester fans, with over 1,000 of them packing out the away end of the stadium and making the voices clear throughout the afternoon.
“Just a huge thank you (to the fans),” Foster said appreciating the support. “You probably don’t see how far it goes, but the interaction the players have with them is huge and we're really grateful that we had them here today and we’ll keep pushing and fighting.
“That’s one of the reasons I joined. The ambition of this Club is set out and is still our ambition now. It’s the reason people joined this Club and even though there’s heartbreak today, it won’t be our last semi-final.
“Once we get over that hurt, they’ll be able to digest that and look at what we’ve done and what we’ll be able to do next time by going one further.”