Team can perform better, believes Dennerby

Bhubaneswar: Writing history can be a double-edged sword. It was visible in the faces of the girls of the U17 India team as they left the venue after their 8-0 drubbing by the US on Tuesday, the day they scripted history by representing an Indian women’s team at a FIFA World Cup.
“Girls, the sun will rise again in India tomorrow anyway. And if we have a sleepless night, we’ll not perform better in three days,” Thomas Dennerby had told his wards in the locker room after the match. “So take it for what it was. We lost 8-0 and we know that we can perform better.”
And on Wednesday, they were back in training at the Capital High School ground here, slogging it out in hopes of a better show against Morocco on Friday.
Playing against a team of footballers selected from academy set-ups that they joined at an early age, the Indians had crumbled like a pack of cards.
They had no answer to the speed, skill or physicality of the US footballers and their seven months of hard work expectedly fell short against years of training that their opposition brought to the field. “I would be blaming myself a lot if I knew that we haven’t been fighting in camps everyday or we haven’t been working 14-17 hours for six months,” reiterated Dennerby. “But we have to remember that these girls were picked up from various trials in their own backyards. We had been calling around trying to find players. And if you compare their level today to that when they arrived, you’ll see the difference.”
But the pressure of playing a World Cup match in front of the home crowd and the huge difference in quality between the teams proved too much for the teenagers.
“When we were conceding the 3rd, 4th and then 5th goals, you could see that most of the girls were starting to give in a little lot. They understood that even if they have a super second half, it was impossible to score six goals against the US,” added the veteran Swede, who also acknowledged that he had never lost a championship tournament game by such a huge margin.
In order to stem the US attack and change the tone of the game, the coach made three changes at the start of the second half. But to no avail. “The last substitution we made was to stop bleeding more goals. We brought in another centre-back and with five players in defence, we stopped the conceding of goals and that was good,” said Dennerby.
On the other hand, the US, who have never lifted the U17 World Cup, made their intentions clear in the opener. But coach Natalia Astrain, unlike most on the Indian side, was impressed by the attitude of the hosts against a formidable opposition. “Our objective was to start strong and send a message to everybody that we are here to win,” said the Spaniard.
“But we had in front of us the players of the host nation who were very organised and really never gave up. It was beautiful to play against such a side working hard for 90 minutes. I know you see the scoreline, but I also saw the mentality of never surrendering. That’s also something I’m taking from the game, and not just the result.”
But the Indians will want their hard work to reflect in the result of the next match.