Botan Ameen’s experience playing for Iraq Under-19s over the summer has accelerated his development at Swindon Town this season, according to Sean Wood.

The last 12 months have been very exciting for Ameen, having joined Town’s under-18s from Queens Park Rangers last summer, he scored twice against Manchester United as part of the FA Youth Cup run, before earning international recognition over the summer, and got his first senior, start, goal, and league appearance in the last week.

Speaking to The Adver in September, Wood explained the improvement he has seen in his game since he came back from playing with Iraq.

He said: “All of last year was above and beyond what we expected with everything that went on: how we did in the league, the FA Youth Cup was brilliant, and it was topped off with Botan’s international call-up.

“He was there for four or five weeks and so we just kept in touch with him, every so often checking in with him to make sure he was alright and see how he was getting on.

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“We knew when he was returning back to the programme, it was going to be a few weeks after the other boys started.

“He missed two weeks of our pre-season but he wanted to get straight back into it and that is the type of boy he is.

“He came straight off of that and has really started to hit form for the team.

“He has come back a lot more mature and grown up, he knows what he is good at and what he needs to work on.”

 

 

Wood added that even prior to that point, Ameen had always had the right mentality to become a top player.

He said: “He is very driven and determined, he just wants to be better, he had a good first year breaking into the team as a nine and this year he is playing more as a wide player with Miles [Obodo] as the nine but they rotate to push each other on.

“All of the opportunities that the boys get exposed to, playing under the lights, at stadiums, and for him going to an international camp are really important.

“Making sure we expose young players to that is only going to push their development on faster.

“He works at his game very hard day-by-day, so he has a lot of good psychological traits and he is very coachable, which makes our job a little bit easier at times.”