Inverness Caley Thistle Women's Janina Morgan hopes friendly against Dutch side Leeuwarder Zwaluwen can spark partnership between north of Scotland and Holland
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Inverness Caledonian Thistle Women will face a somewhat different challenge this weekend – hosting Dutch outfit Leeuwarder Zwaluwen.
The match will take place at the Highland Football Academy in Dingwall due to pitch availability, kicking off at noon on Sunday.
It has come about thanks to a connection through Caley Jags defender Janina Morgan, who is half-Dutch and has connections with the north second tier outfit – step five of the overall Dutch women's football pyramid.
She was approached by the Zwaluwen – which translates as the Swallows – manager, who asked if it would be possible to arrange a friendly if the Dutch club came over for a weekend.
Morgan hopes this can be the beginning of a relationship between the two clubs, and says she hopes both sides will be able to learn something from the other.
"Dutch and Scottish football can learn a lot from each other, so this might kick off something really nice between the north of Scotland and the north of Holland," Morgan said.
"If this goes really well this weekend, it would be really good for us to maybe go over to Holland for a weekend next year.
"Everyone asks me what I think the score will be, but I honestly don't know – tactics are a big thing in Holland, they know their football and they are very good, but I think we might have them for fitness and technique.
"It will be very nice for them to see the culture here. In Scotland, you never give up, no matter what. In Holland I think heads go down a little bit quicker, but we will see that you can play hard and then have a laugh afterwards.
"The Dutch are quite direct, and I think you can be polite while still being direct, so if the Scottish politeness and Dutch directness meet in the middle that could be the perfect combination.
"I'm already quite nervous about it – but an excited kind of nervous. I'm very thankful to Karen (Mason, ICT boss) for putting this in the schedule and I really appreciate the girls taking the time to do this in a really busy period.
"We're hoping for a big crowd even though it's a friendly because it would be good for the Dutch girls to see the buzz we have around.
"The crowd really got involved in our last cup game and gave us such a special experience, so it would be good to show the Dutch girls that it's really growing here."
If there is a big crowd in Dingwall on Sunday, it will not faze the Swallows. In a country three times smaller than Scotland with almost triple the football-mad population, clubs are all over the country and backed in numbers.
That also leads to clubs having some funds set aside for team bonding, as well as canteens making profits that can be pushed back into the club.
Those, as well as a fundraising bingo night, helped the Dutch side make this weekend's match possible.
As far as Caley Thistle are concerned, they will be determined to show Highland hospitality while also having one eye on their biggest match in years – a Scottish Cup tie against SWPL leaders Rangers on January 7.
It is important to keep legs ticking over with training and friendlies in the meantime, but Morgan suspects that playing Leeuwarder Zwaluwen will aid preparations in another sense too.
"It's a team we've never played, and we've never played the current Rangers set-up," she added.
"It's not a team we're used to playing, so I think it will be very good to see how we play a team we've never played before this weekend, and see if we can adjust as we go on the pitch.
"It will be very interesting to see, and it will be good to get some minutes in the girls' legs.
"We're going to train so hard, and I think this is going to be a good way of seeing how we react to not knowing anything about the opponent."
