Par Lagerstrom hints at attacking display, Thomas Dennerby keen on improvement

The Indian girls will face Sweden in the final of the U17 Women's Football Tournament 2019 in Mumbai on Thursday.

India will face their Swedish counterparts in the final of the U-17 Women's Tournament 2019 that is being held in Mumbai. After a defeat against Sweden earlier, the Indian team registered a win over Thailand on Tuesday evening and qualified for the final of the three-national tournament. Ahead of the final, Sweden and India head coaches, Par Lagerstrom and Thomas Dennerby interacted in the pre-match press conference on Wednesday in Mumbai.

To begin the proceedings, Par Lagerstrom was asked about if there are any areas where he thinks the Swedish side needs to work on. “Yeah absolutely, a lot of areas," the tactician began. "What we have talked about is the way we want to play. We know we can take the long ball but we also like to put the ball side to side, put the through them but what we want to do is to keep the ball to ourselves, to keep the ball more in possession in our team," he added.

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"We always want to score more goals,” he went on saying.

The Indian girls bounced back with a victory on Tuesday evening over Thailand and Par Lagerstrom was asked whether he thought that they played better against Thailand than against Sweden on December 13.

“I think it is difficult to say, to compare the two games. I think in the first game, I was truly impressed by India. They have some players who are really good; one of them is here, the goalkeeper. They have a great left-winger and they have some, couple of great defenders,” he said.

“We have a lot of respect for the Indian team,” Par Lagerstrom added.

Thomas Dennerby

India U-17 women's head coach Thomas Dennerby, followed by Par Lagerstrom, also addressed in the press conference, where he was asked regarding the importance of the win against Thailand ahead of the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup next year.

“Of course, it was a crucial win. It means a lot for the self-confidence. Winning football games is really, really important. I can’t say that enough. Also, when you look at a game, you can win the game by luck or you can win a game because you deserve to win it," Thomas Dennerby began.

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“I think that all of you will agree that we deserved to win the game yesterday. We played really well. We created a lot of scoring chances. When we looked at the game this morning, we realize that we should have scored three more goals. We did a lot of good things and in attack we were extremely good,” he said.

The Indian head coach also remarked about the final match against Sweden as he said, “Yes, I think Sweden will come out strong in this game. But the difference is now our girls will have the first game in mind."

On Playing Against Sweden

"They know the style of Sweden and they know how to handle it. I think in the first 10 minutes of our game against Sweden in game one, we were a little bit anxious. But now, we will not be that anxious. I hope we can manage a little bit better this time. Maybe if it was not a 3-0 game and a 2-1 or something, it would have been a better result,” Thomas Dennerby further added.

India will face Sweden in the final of the U17 Women's Tournament 2019 on Thursday from 6:00 PM at the Mumbai Football Arena.