“Our goal is to win the gold medal in the Girls’ Youth Olympic Football Tournament,” Zseremeta told media in Nanjing today.
The Venezuela side has retained six of the players who helped guide their country to a fourth place finish at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica and start as strong favourites for the title.
They are also boosted by rising starlet Deyna Castellanos who was one of the outstanding performers in Costa Rica, winning the Golden Boot with six goals and three assists.
By contrast Papua New Guinea’s build-up has been relatively low key.
Papua New Guinea captain Margret Joseph says maintaining focus has been a challenge for her young team-mates who are experiencing life outside of their own country for the very first time.
But its a challenge they’re coming to grips with nonetheless.
“It’s quite busy in the athlete village because of all the exciting things happening but the players have kept controlled and focused on the task ahead,” Joseph says.
Since their team was formed in April this year, the young islanders have played three warm-up matches under head coach Margaret Aka and they followed this up with the two friendly games with Chinese Province Jiangsu.
In the first match Papua New Guinea U-15 lost to Jiangsu 5-3 after coming back from 3-1 down to test the locals defensive qualities with goals scored by midfielders Vicktyla Jackson and Marity Sep.
Lomogese-based striker Selina Unamba added a third.
A second match with Jiangsu finished in a 3-0 defeat after both teams drew a blank in the first half.
If there is inspiration to draw from it might be located in Papua New Guinea’s last outing at the Youth Olympic Games Football tournament in Singapore four years ago.
Papua New Guinea lost 4-2 on penalties to Trinidad & Tobago but only after they produced a brave 0-0 draw in the fifth placed playoff at the Jalan Basar Stadium in front of 1,500 fans.
Papua New Guinea’s next match is with Slovakia on 20 August at Wutaishan Stadium.
Match Details
Girls’ Youth Olympic Football Tournament
Group A
Wutaishan Stadium
Nanjing, China
Thursday 14 August
Papua New Guinea v Venezuela
Kick-off: 6pm local times
Ends