Alex Ambrose: The break is a huge blow to our preparation

The India U-17 Women's Team assistant coach expressed his disappointment with the ongoing break.

India is set to host the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in November this year. However, the organizing body is presently overlooking the COVID-19 outbreak in the country. The Indian team’s assistant coach Alex Ambrose believes that the current situation has been a massive setback in terms of preparations for the major tournament.

For the time being, the girls from the squad have been sent back to their respective homes. Additionally, they have also been given individual plans to follow so that they continue to remain in the groove.

“Training in isolation will not help a lot when you're playing a team sport," Alex Ambrose spoke to The Times of India.

"It will help the fitness but to fully prepare for a tournament of this magnitude, we need the girls together. It's a huge blow to our preparation, especially if the tournament is going to be held in November.”

The Indian team was supposed to go to Slovenia and Sweden earlier in March as part of their exposure tours. It would have trained them for more difficult challenges that they have to face ahead.

However, AIFF withdrew those plans in the wake of the pandemic. Ambrose remarked, “Exposure tours are the best way to prepare. Apart from the host nations, we were scheduled to play against Japan and other top teams. This would have been great for us since our momentum was going strong.”

Earlier, India had defeated their counterparts from Romania by a margin of 1-0 in February. Regarding that, the assistant coach stated, “Romania are a very strong team. That victory gave us belief that we could do well against strong opponents. After this break, we'll have to start again.”

On the other hand, FIFA hasn’t yet made an official announcement to postpone or cancel the U-17 Women's World Cup. A statement communicated earlier this week read, “With public health and safety in mind, FIFA is also working with the Local Organising Committee (LOC) to identify any potential impact on preparations for the U-17 Women's World Cup 2020, as well as finding alternative solutions to upcoming events that were planned in India in the lead up to the tournament.”

The competition is scheduled to commence on 2nd November and would conclude on the 21st of the same month.