The OFC U-17 Championship will kick off in Luganville in Vanuatu on Wednesday, 17 April and coach Kamal Swamy says the success of the U-20 national side is a major morale booster for his charges.
“The boys are very eager, they always want do what the U-20s are going and they want to go one better by qualifying for the FIFA U-17 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates,” Swamy says.
The team has been in camp, alongside the U-20 squad, at the Fiji Football Association Academy in Ba for the past four weeks.
“We called them to the first camp during the eight-week school holidays, then the second camp was in February and now we are in our third camp,” he says.
“What was an elite squad of 35 has been dropped to 26 and over the next few weeks we will finalise a squad of 20 who will travel to Vanuatu.”
Swamy says he has received a lot of help from the Fiji FA technical department and believes the team is on track for success.
“They are participating well in what we are teaching them – the game plans, the tactics, the shape of the team – and I think it will be a good outing for the boys,” he says.
“We made sure to go and support our national U-20 side and during that time we were able to watch and analyse the systems of play employed by other teams such as Vanuatu. We looked at their tactics and skill levels because a lot of the teams are trained by the same coaches.
“I think we have a good core of players who have been playing together for a long time. I think we have a good chance of doing well in this competition.”
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