Katie McCabe aiming to build momentum at Cyprus Cup

On Thursday afternoon at the FAI National Training Centre in Abbotstown, Ireland international Katie McCabe was officially unveiled as Sportsdirect.com FAI Summer School female ambassador and after the announcement she spoke to Extratime.ie about her new role.

“It’s a privilege to be asked to do it on the girl's behalf” she said. “It was a no brainer for me when I was asked, I grew up on the camps with Noel King coaching me so it's an honour to be asked to do it.”

When asked if she will have the opportunity to coach some of the camps, McCabe explained that when feasible she is looking forward to returning to Ireland from her new club Arsenal.

“Yeah, of course. I’ll be over during the Easter and the Summer break when I’ve time off with Arsenal. They’re backing it as well, they’re supporting me doing it so it’s great to have that backing as well.”

After leaving Shelbourne Ladies in December to begin her first professional contract the forward explained it is something she had dreamt of whilst participating in FAI camps many years ago.

“It was brilliant, It’s been something I’ve always wanted to do as a young kid growing up even through these camps you're looking at Noel King coaching you and Sharon Boyle coming in. It’s brilliant over there so far and I’m loving it, loving every minute of it.”

With the WSL season less than a month away, McCabe recently returned from a pre-season trip to Spain and she believes being in her teammates for a long period of time has been a huge benefit and will help her club side going forward as they aim to challenge for a first WSL crown in 2012.

“Yeah, definitely pre-season tours are always great, you’re with each other all the time. Obviously the win against Bayern Munich at the end helped us as well as a team going forward, so hopefully we can get some trophies this season.”

Despite having proven her ability in Ireland in the Women’s National League, McCabe is aware that she may have to bide her time before establishing herself as a regular within the Arsenal set-up.

“That’s something I’ve been talking about closely with the manager [Pedro Martinez Losa]. Obviously I want to be getting into the team but I know I’ve a lot to do. I’m still a young player and I’m learning a lot off all the senior players at Arsenal and Ireland - I’m learning, adapting and hopefully I can be a starting player in the team.”

After returning from a several month absence due to a quad injury in the recent Ireland friendly in America, McCabe will be eager to get going in 2016 with next week's Cyprus Cup as her side look to build momentum toward April's games away to Spain and Montenegro having lost two of their opening three European Championship qualifiers.

“It’s brilliant to get the call up off Sue [Ronan]. It's always a privilege playing for your country, we have to do the business now in Cyprus next week against Italy, Austria and Hungary. We’ll be in Monday ready to go.

“We did get the win against Portugal which was great for us, but the game against Finland I thought we were unlucky. We obviously didn’t take our chances, but going forward we built that up into the Portugal game.

“When we played Spain, they’re always a top team we knew what we were going to get off them, but a new year and obviously we’ll have this tournament under our belt ready for the double header in April against Spain and Montenegro - hopefully we can get some wins in Cyprus going forward.”