Dalima Chhibber: We are all working on a new philosophy under Dennerby

The Indian women’s football team has played six friendlies before the AFC Asian Cup so far with a win against higher ranked Chinese Taipei

Dalima, who plays for Manitoba Bisons in Canada, said that the sport was very different in the West as compared to that in Asia.

 India Women’s football team full back Dalima Chhibber has said that the team has been able to acclimatise itself with the new philosophy of Swedish head coach Thomas Dennerby. 

“We are all working on a new philosophy under a new coach, Mr. Thomas Dennerby and I feel like these six teams have allowed us to reflect on the new style of playing.” 

“With the performance, I think we've become more confident in playing and we've been able to adapt to a new style of play, competing against the teams that we will be facing in the Asian Cup,” she told the press on Wednesday.

Dennerby, who took over team India after Maymol Rocky, has stressed on increasing the team’s fitness and had taken the team to his former club Hammarby IF in Sweden.

READ: Lloyd says she won't stray far from the sport in retirement

Talking in a media interaction, Dalima said that the training sessions under Thomas now focused on overall development rather than “individual nurturing” which is bringing the team together. 

“The coach has been focusing on overall development of players, because every player is different individually and it is important to focus on what the needs of a certain player are. We have training sessions which are just spread out and they include a lot of different things, whether it's nutrition, whether its strength and conditioning,” she said.

“I feel like he, as a coach, has been able to understand the different capabilities and other abilities of the players and he's been able to reflect on who needs what more.”

“That, in turn, is able to bring the team on the same page so that every player who, for example, needs to work on their strengths, are able to work on their strength whereas the players (who) need to work on the technical abilities are working (accordingly),” she added.

The Indian team has played six friendlies before the AFC Asian Cup so far with a win against higher-ranked Chinese Taipei and successive losses against Swedish Premier Division sides Hammarby IF and Djurgardens IF.

READ: Indian Women's football coach Dennerby lauds team fitness ahead of friendly

Dalima, who plays for Manitoba Bisons in Canada, said that the sport was very different in the West as compared to that in Asia. 

“(I feel like) European football is a lot different than Asian football and I feel even the Western football in the European football are quite similar. European football is a lot quicker, it's very physical. The players - they're tall, they're strong, they like to connect well with speed and the intensity of football is really high,” said Chhibber.

With the Asian Cup next year, the full-back is optimistic about the team’s performance at home and said that the team has been able to keep up its intensity with tight training sessions. 

India is placed alongside Australia and Japan in the pot for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup draw scheduled tomorrow at Kuala Lumpur.