Jamshedpur
India have garnered two consecutive victories in the SAFF U-18 Women’s Championship and are sitting pretty at the top of the table with 6 points from their first two games. However, head coach Thomas Dennerby asserted that the young Tigresses need to maintain focus to get the desired results in the remaining two games as well.
“We came here with the ambition to try and win all the four games, and nothing has changed since then. We’ve won two, and two more games remain. If we can handle the game against Nepal in a good way and get another win, then it would be a really good situation for us in the last game against Bangladesh. Hopefully, we will have a good game tomorrow (Monday),” said Dennerby as per an official AIFF release. India started the tournament with a bang, defeating Nepal 7-0 in the opening game, before earning a 1-0 victory over Bangladesh. Meanwhile, Bangladesh earned a 4-2 victory against Nepal, thus putting India on top of the table with six points, with Bangladesh following in at second.
“I’m super happy that we have six points. That puts us in a good position in this tournament. But still we could have done better in the first half against Bangladesh. We played a lot of long straight balls that were easy for Bangladesh to deal with,” said the head coach. “I have to be satisfied with our defending. We have not allowed our opponents too many opportunities to score. I think Bangladesh had two chances against us, and Nepal only one. That speaks a lot about the defensive discipline we have. We still have a few things to work on in our attacking game,” he added.
India will take on Nepal in their next match of the SAFF U-18 Women’s Championship at the JRD Tata Sports Complex in Jamshedpur on Monday.
