What are they doing? – Neville unimpressed by USA´s hotel scout

England coach Phil Neville accused the United States of lacking etiquette after their staff members visited the Lionesses’ team hotel ahead of their Women’s World Cup semi-final.

USA face England in the first of the last-four clashes on Tuesday in Lyon, where the final will also take place on Sunday.

It emerged that members of the USA’s backroom team had scouted out the hotel England are staying in, with Jill Ellis’ team possibly relocating to that venue if they beat Neville’s side and reach the final.

That bemused Neville, who stressed nobody from his staff would consider doing likewise.

“It’s not a concern – the only thing I would say is it’s not something that I want my team ops person doing,” he said.

“It’s not something that England would do. We’re happy with our hotel. We were training, so I hope they enjoyed the hotel. It’s not something we’d do – send someone round to another team’s hotel.

STAN CAM

We armed @lucystan37 with a tiny camera to take us from Le Havre Lyon. pic.twitter.com/V3iRT7VXl8

— Lionesses (@Lionesses) June 29, 2019

“But it’s their problem. I’m sure Jill probably wouldn’t have been happy with that arrangement, I wouldn’t have been if that was my team ops person going around, and I’m sure she will be dealing with their own infrastructure within their own discipline. 

“It will have no bearing on the game. I actually found it quite funny, I just thought, ‘What are they doing?’ It’s not [the right] etiquette really, is it? That’s not something that I would allow from our organisation.”

Ellis brushed off the incident, though, saying it was not a sign of American arrogance.

“I would assume everybody is doing that; you have to plan ahead,” she said.

“The only two people that think of planning ahead on my team are my administrator, because she has to book all the flights and everything, and her boss. Everybody else, we don’t worry about that.

“That’s probably who the two people were. That’s important to do your job. In terms of arrogance, I think that’s got nothing to do with us, that’s planning, preparation for our staff. I think that’s pretty normal.”