The Digicel national under 19 football side left our shores today for the 2022 OFC U19 Championship to be played in Tahiti next month.
The Ronil Lal-coached side will travel to New Zealand first and will play two build-up matches before heading to Tahiti a week later.
Lal said preparation had been going well and they were happy to be going to New Zealand first to play build-up matches.
“We have not turned any stone unturned for our preparation for the past six weeks and now we are getting ready for the qualifiers and the two build matches against Auckland City age group side and New Zealand under 19 team will surely give us the opportunity to test our players,”
“Our first test match will be on Wednesday 24th August and our second match will be on 31st before leaving for Tahiti on 2nd September, “said former Labasa coach
He said the team was ready for the mission.
“Our aim is to qualify for the FIFA U20 World Cup and the players have been doing all the hard work in training and giving everything,”
“It has been a great six weeks with the team as they all are excited and determined to make everyone proud in the championship,”
“We have worked on our strategies and plans of our style of play and I must thank our national head coach Flemming Serristlev and Technical Director Timo Yankowski for their support,”
“We had a very good trial where we had so many overseas players and local players also and we tried to get our best and they have gelled in well,”
“We did our selections according to position wise so in that way we managed to get the best players for each position,” said Lal
Lal said the morale in camp was very good.
“The morale in camp is very good and also very challenging and tough, I can see in training that they give in all and it’s all playing tough and playing hard and I think that is the spirit we need,”
“It is not impossible for us to qualify for the FIFA World Cup so our aim is to treat each match as a final and reach the semi-finals first,”
‘It won’t be easy but challenging and I have full faith in the team,”
“Looking at the spirit we will try our best and get the best for the country,” said Lal
Lal said they had Tahiti, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea in the pool.
“Basically we don’t know about these teams so we are only focusing on ourselves on how we are preparing so after the first match which is up against PNG which will be a tricky one as they are always a good side so we have to plan for them first and the two warm up matches in New Zealand will help us a lot,” said Lal
The Digicel national under 19 sides will face PNG on September 8 and then takes on Tonga on 11 September before their final group match will up against host Tahiti on September 14.
