Not thinking much and taking one game at time: Thomas Dennerby

With just only 10 days left for the AFC Women’s Asia Cup India, 2022, India women’s team head coach Thomas Dennerby said that his side is not thinking much and just taking one game at a time.

AFC Women’s Asia Cup India, 2022 is going to kick start from January 20 and will end on February 6.

“We have been preparing since August. Have been working hard, and been doing 8-10 sessions every week, and we’ve also have a few exposure tours in Bahrain, UAE, Sweden, Brazil. We have played different kinds of teams, some higher ranked, some lower ranked than us. Now, it’s just a few days left, and we are doing the final preparations. We are just fine-tuning a few things for the team right now,” said Thomas Dennerby as per an official AIFF release.

“We have a good bunch of experienced and young players who are hungry to prove themselves on the pitch. For some reason, you tend to get a bit more relaxed as you get older — that’s just the natural order of things. So, it’s always good to have the younger ones come and push the older ones. But it also works the other way round, as the more experienced bunch can guide the younger ones to do the right things. To not take too much stress before games, how to behave before and after the match,” he added.

The head coach further said that playing at home is an advantage as it provides comfort to the players.

“I think it’s an advantage to play at home — always a good feeling as a player. My experience says you feel more comfortable at home and hopefully, that will help us. Would have been nice to have a crowd, but now we know that with Covid that is not possible. But it will still be nice to play at home,” said the head coach.

“We take it one game at a time. If you start thinking about too much and if you already think about combinations and permutations, that can be harmful for the players. The staff can do such things to try and find a way that is good for us, but players should always focus on the next 90 minutes. Players should always take it step by step,” he added.