The Indian women's team has been sweating it out in Mandalay, Myanmar for a week now. The team, which recently won its fifth successive SAFF Championship, has been preparing for the AFC Olympic Qualifiers Round 2 and will face Indonesia in its first match on April 3.
"We arrived here eight days prior (March 26) to our first match against Indonesia for acclimatization. The team has responded well, and have settled down fast to the torrid weather conditions here,” head coach Maymol Rocky said.
READ | India wins fifth successive SAFF Women's Championship
“The players have got a feel of the pitch, and the training sessions had been designed specifically to help them adjust while focusing on tactics.”
“We had won the SAFF Championship in Biratnagar (Nepal), where temperatures were similar (around 40 degrees). But here in Manadalay, it's lot more humid. But not just physically, everyone is charged up mentally.”
“The weather won’t be an issue. We have prepared hard for the Olympic Qualifiers Round 2, and we won’t let the weather dictate our performance.”
“We have played 14 international matches in a span of three months before coming to Myanmar including matches in Turkey, Indonesia and Nepal, amongst others. We have also played in the first ever Hero Gold Cup in Bhubaneswar and all of these matches have helped our bodies to act quickly and adapt to the situation,” Maymol said.
The Indian women’s team had started 2019 with two matches each against Hong Kong and Indonesia, before playing in the Hero Gold Cup and subsequently moving to Turkey to participate in an 8-nation women’s tournament over there.
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