India can surely play a little bit better, asserts Thomas Dennerby

The tactician is keen for his players to gear up for the upcoming games.

India coached by Thomas Dennerby had a debut to forget at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup as they were handed a heavy defeat by the United States of America. The girls from the States were on the top of their game and showed little mercy to the host nation.

India lost 0-8 to the United States, who are undoubtedly one of the favourites to lift the trophy for the first time in their history. The young blue tigresses looked a little clueless and not up to the USA’s standards. A lot of work needs to be done by Thomas Dennerby and his team in order to recover from this.

After the game, head coach Thomas Dennerby spoke to the media and shared his thoughts on the game.

Thoughts on the game

Dennerby shared his thoughts on the result and the performance of his team. He began with congratulating the USA and then said that India can do much begged than this.

“Firstly, congratulations to USA for the victory. If you look at the USA team, you cannot find any weaknesses in them.

“India can surely play a little bit better as it is their first World Cup. We tried to build up, but couldn’t do much. But the good thing is that there are two more games to and I hope we can show everyone that India is much much better than this,” he said.

How to get over the loss?

India had a night to forget and will surely want to get over it as soon as possible. Dennerby said that he’ll be there with a smiling face in the next training session to motivate the girls.

“Take it for a loss and just know that we can perform better, but ofcourse the face of the coach is also the face of the players. 

“So, tomorrow I’ll be there smiling to motivate themselves

We will stick to our plan and try to win the next and if we manage to do so, there’s still a chance,” he added.

Also Read:

• Ruthless USA put eight pass hapless India in FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup
• Ratings: Sublime USA thrash clueless India

Prediction for the rest of the tournament 

The head coach also shared his predictions on how the rest of the tournament could go for India and how they can fetch points.

“I hope we end the tournament with points. We have a big chance to have a fair game with Morocco. When I watched the game, I felt that the game between Brazil and Morocco was not upto the mark in comparison to our game,” he said.

Set piece defending

India conceded a lot of corners that eventually resulted in goals. The Swedish tactician said that his side were not up to the mark in comparison to other training sessions and matches.

“The funny thing is that we didn’t play with any players who are so tall and so good. We defended really well in training and in the previous games, but that wasn’t the case today,” he quipped.

Mental conditioning of the players

USA’s head coach Natalia Astrain mentioned that the Indian girls possess a never say die attitude which was visible in the game as well. Dennerby spoke about the importance of this mental conditioning and said that it’s important.

“We need to do that, but when we conceded five goals, they almost gave up. It seemed impossible to them, but we tried to change their mentality in the game,” he concluded.

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