The Colombian Football team is all geared up to take on Spain in their opening match of the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Navi Mumbai on Wednesday. Like any other team, they too have trained well for the mega event happening in the sub-continent but in a different way.
The Colombia U-17 squad prepared themselves for not just the game but also for the time difference between their capital Bogota, and India, which is 10-and-a-half-hours. To cope with the dissimilarity, and also keeping the jet lag factor in mind, coach Carlos Paniagua devised a plan to get his team ready for the challenge.
According to The Indian Express, the players were asked to wake up an hour early every day. The first day, they woke up at 9 am, the next day at 8 am, and so on. While addressing a presser, Paniagua said the earliest they woke up was at 3:30 am, had breakfast and began training at 4:30 am.
“It was not easy for the girls to have breakfast at 3.30 am and then be on the ground at 4 am to start training at 4.30 am. They know how important it is and they did it without any complaints," Paniagua said at the pre-match press conference on Tuesday.
The Columbian squad arrived in India on Saturday, October 8, at around 7 am and instead of taking a rest after a long flight, the coach asked his girls to have lunch and breakfast. It turned out to be one of the most difficult training sessions for Columbia and captain Mary Jose Alvarez called it ‘the laziest’.
But the uneasy beginning of their stay in India paid off the next day as the girls were fresh and had a great time on the training ground.
“We’re ready for the challenge. We’ve had great preparation for this tournament and the girls are confident," Paniagua said.
Colombia have made four appearances at the U-17 World Cups but never managed to go beyond the group stage. They’ll fancy their chances against group members China and Mexico and it’s indeed going to be full of challenges.
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