India U-17 women's team head coach Thomas Dennerby has said that players are mentally and physically ready for the upcoming World Cup, starting from October 11, despite less-than-ideal last few months in Indian football.
With the team preparing for the World Cup right from mid-February, Dennerby underlined his overall happiness with the camps [in Jamshedpur and Bhubaneswar], noting that they undertook over '250 different sessions' in total. "I hope we are prepared now. Both physically, with the fitness level and also technical and tactical," Dennerby said.
However, the Alex Ambrose case still hangs in the background, with Dennerby appearing to confirm that this group of players was selected by the now-ousted coach. "From the early beginning, the players were scouted by the All India Football Federation scouting system and also by the assistant coach - that was done summer 2021 or autumn 2021. At that time, I couldn't do that because I was with the senior team. So the players were already picked when I arrived in February this year," he said.
Ambrose was the assistant coach of the U-17 women's team and was also in-charge of the scouting process. In June this year, he was accused of alleged sexual misconduct with one of the team members during an exposure trip and was later suspended. A POCSO [child abuse] case has been registered against him by the Dwarka police in Delhi and reports state that he has been granted transit anticipatory bail.
All India Football Federation, now under a new administration, has not given much information regarding the case and also what support was offered to the squad after the allegations came out.
Yet, the mood in the camp is one of excitement, with the girls 'mentally ready' to handle the World Cup, according to their coach.
He did posit that the team would have benefitted from more exposure tours, saying, "Maybe we should have played some more exposure games, but it's too late to change that now; we are happy for the games we had."
India's most recent trip to Spain in preparation for the World Cup saw them lose 1-3 to Sweden and then defeat WSS Barcelona 17-1. Dennerby was pleased with the performance against Sweden, noting that the first half was a closely-fought contest before nervous mistakes crept into India's game. "We can see that our performance as a team is stronger now than it was when we played our first exposure games in June, July," he said.
Dennerby also remained positive about India's chances against their much-vaunted opponents like the USA and Brazil. "We have the supporters on our side. We also will show that India have a really good team with a lot of young players that can perform on the highest level for this age group."