Maymol Rocky: Important to learn from defeat to Vietnam

The India women's football team coach says the defeat to Vietnam in the first international friendly has helped the team learn about itself and opponent.

Maymol Rocky (second from right) talks to the India women's football team players during a training session.

Indian women’s team head coach Maymol Rocky echoed her players’ sentiments ahead of their second FIFA international friendly against Vietnam tomorrow, stating that they are ready to bounce back.

The Indians suffered a 3-0 loss in the first of the two FIFA international friendlies. However, Rocky believes that her charges have taken home a lot from the game.

“It was a difficult first game for us, but we have learnt a lot about ourselves and about our opponents in that defeat,” she said.

Despite the loss, Maymol saw the opportunity to mark out the areas where the team needs to put in more work. “We identified the areas where we need to work on and have been trying to improve on those departments over the last couple of days,” she further said.

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The coach brought up the example of the team’s friendlies against Uzbekistan earlier this year, when India suffered a heavy loss in the first game before bouncing back with a 1-1 draw in the second one.

“The most important thing is that even when we lose, the players learn something from that. When we had played against Uzbekistan, we lost the first match 1-5 but then worked on our errors to bounce back in the next game. That is the kind of reaction we are looking for from the girls now,” said Rocky.

“What we have to keep in mind is that we need to gain the experience of playing these tough international opponents so that we will be ready for the challenge when we play the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers next year,” she added.

India will play against Vietnam on Wednesday at the Vietnam Football Training Centre, with the kick-off set for 1.30 PM IST.