XtraTime Web Desk: The Indian U15 Women National Team will be departing Indian shores for Bhutan on August 07, 2018 to participate in the SAFF U15 Women’s Championship.
The Indian U15s have been drawn in Group A of the SAFF U15 Women’s Championship alongside hosts Bhutan and Sri Lanka. While the Indian girls face Sri Lanka on August 09, 2018, they square off against the hosts on August 13, 2018.
This will be the second edition of the SAFF U15 Women’s Championship, the earlier one held in 2017 in Dhaka where the Indian girls finished runners-up to hosts Bangladesh.
Ahead of the departure, Head Coach Firmin D’Souza explained that the team would be going all out to win the Championship. “The girls have shown commendable zeal, discipline and determination to win. The zeal to improve every day is also highly visible in the batch and our final target is to win the SAFF Cup but we will be taking one match at a time,” said D’Souza.
The girls head to the tournament with a 23-day preparatory camp in Odisha.
“We have worked on our weak areas throughout the camp and it puts is in a happy spot where we are content with our squad depth and chemistry,” Firmin stated. “The focus of the Camp was to play as a team and develop team chemistry by working on conditioning their minds to a certain playing style.”
“We worked on the diets of the players as well and dished out custom diets to everyone as per their needs. The players understand this kind of dedication and the girls have been religiously following the diet plan.”
India’s fixtures in the SAFF U15 Women’s Championship:
AUGUST 09: India vs Sri Lanka
AUGUST 13: India vs Bhutan.
AUGUST 16: Semi-finals
AUGUST 18: Final