Football
Indian Football: "It's a challenge to play against superior teams like Brazil" believes Sweety Devi
The Indian women's team is going to play a four-nation football tournament held in Brazil this month
Sweety Devi, defender, Indian Women's team, thinks that the team should be mentally strong and prepared in their Brazil tour. She also believes that the team needs to play as a single unit against strong opponents such as Brazil (7th in the world), Chile (37th in the world) and Venezuela (56th in the world). India (57th in the world) has a tough job to accomplish in front of them. "We need to be strong mentally. Playing Brazil won't be easy. Our coaches are looking after the tactical aspect. The most important thing for us is that we need to play together as a team. The team bonding is quite high, and we will play together. We respect them, but we will play hard," quoted the Indian defender.
The Indian women's team is going to play a four-nation football tournament held in Brazil featuring Chile, Venezuela and the host themselves. India vs Brazil on 25th November is going to be the opening game of the competition. India will be participating in the AFC Women's Asia Cup in the January of the upcoming year. This trip to Brazil is going to give them a very much-needed experience and exposure of facing highly tough teams before the Blue tigresses commences their Asian campaign.
The first match against Brazil is going to be a very tough match for the women in blue. Marta, considered to be one of the best female Brazilian forward ever will surely cause a lot of trouble to Sweety and her co defenders. When asked about facing Marta, the Indian defender replied "It will be a huge challenge to play against her. We will try to stop her and are working on our plans. If possible, maybe we can speak a few words with her too after the game."
The Indian team played a few matches recently against tough opponents, asking about that exposure and what lies ahead, Sweety answered "It's a challenge to play against superior teams. It's a good opportunitytoo. We are developing ourselves, and it's a good opportunity for us to play them, so we want to take this opportunity." She continued "We learned a lot from the exposure tours that we recently had. We had never played these opponents – UAE, Bahrain, Chinese Taipei, and then Sweden. The good thing was that the level of intensity of the matches slowly increased so that we could also match up to the opposition. At the end, the matches were of really high intensity."
We can expect a great deal from our ladies in their upcoming Brazil campaign. The young 21-year-old defender believes staying mentally strong will be an advantage while facing tough opponents. India faces Brazil on 25th November, all eyes on that.
