As Scotland Women’s Under-23s prepare to make their European friendly tournament debut in matches against Sweden and Italy, Lisa Forrest talks about making the step up to the Under-23s earlier this year, upcoming opposition and her club form.

Forrest returns to the Under-23s for this international window, having made her debut at this age group back in June. She made a fantastic start to life with Michael McArdle’s side, bagging three assists in two games.

And the Glasgow City forward is raring to continue her development during this camp, as she told us how she has found being involved so far.

“It is obviously a big step up from the Under-19s, but it’s good,” Lisa said. “It’s more challenging and more demanding, so it will be another really good experience.

“It’s more challenging because the players are all playing at such a high level. We’re in full-time environments every day, and it’s really professional. That has been the biggest difference going from the 19s to the 23s.”

With Scotland Under-23s joining the friendly fixture programme this year, the 19-year-old is just one player to benefit from extending our pathway to the senior team.

“Everyone who plays with the 23s knows how special it is,” she said. “Up until a few years ago, after you were done with the 19s, you might not have had the chance to go further because it was such a big jump to the ‘A’ squad.

“This helps to kind of bridge that gap, and I think everyone just really loves it.”

Opposition

During this window, the Young Team will play Sweden at Stark’s Park and make a trip to Florence to face Italy in our first European friendly tournament matches.

We will go on and travel to Belgium in November and host the Netherlands in March, with the aim of the tournament to expose our young players to top-level opposition on a regular basis.

“You always want to play the best teams to see where you stand and see where the level actually is,” Lisa said. “We’ve got the opportunity to go and do that more often now.

“They are obviously two hard opponents. We’ll prepare this week and we will know what we have to do when we step out onto the pitch.

“It’s going to benefit everyone involved with the Under-23s. We can use it as a steppingstone to try get into the A-squad one day.”

Forrest on fire

Forrest came into camp following a stellar start to the season with her club. The forward has scored five goals in 15 appearances across all competitions, including last week’s injury-time winner in City’s defeat of HB Køge to reach the UEFA Europa Cup Round of 16.

“It’s always good to have a good send-off and to be feeling good before you go away on camp,” Lisa said.

“The night, as a whole, against Køge - coming back from being 1-0 down after a few minutes and going on to win it how we did. It was just amazing. I still have no words. I think you can see from my reaction after I score that the emotion just took over.”

Last time out

Scotland Women’s Under-23s closed out the May international window with an impressive 2-1 win over Iceland. Bayley Hutchison and Jenny Smith scored during a dominant second-half display to secure the victory.

Scotland Women’s Under-23 Fixture:

Scotland v Sweden

Thursday, 23 October

Stark’s Park, Kirkcaldy KO 7pm

Admission Free