Ben Fokuo shares thoughts on player readiness, player psyche, lessons from France friendly and more: Transcript

The Black Princesses have stepped up preparations and getting ready for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Costa Rica 2022 after arriving in San Jose on Wednesday for the tournament.

Head coach Ben Fokuo updates shares an update on the team and getting the girls for the task ahead.

On player response to training in Costa Rica

We have been in Costa Rica for some days now and we have had several training sessions and everything is going on well. The players are responding to training as well. The place is very cloudy as it rains everyday and it becomes difficult for the players to cop with the pitch because they easily fall to the ground.

On training indoors due to excessive rains

There was too much rain during one of our sessions we had to train indoors. The pitch has become very bad and I wish the players will have a different boot which can help them if the competition starts and it keeps raining.

On lessons from friendly against France

After the France game we sat down and looked at the lapses in the team and did some correction. In our training sessions, you can tell the players are shaping up nicely before our next game. We have learnt a lot from the game against France and there have been some corrections.

On friendly before tournament

Our next friendly will be a different game compared to the one against France as I know the players have worked on themselves and making sure our next friendly will be a good test before the tournament starts.

On psyching players ahead of tournament

We were far from the competition but here we are very close to the tournament and we have to let the players know that we are close to the World Cup so we have to psych them. We played a friendly with France and here we are in Costa Rica so they know we are few days away.

We have psyched them to get ready and hope we don’t record any injury as we are heading for the tournament and I know the players will do their best.

The Black Princesses will engage in a low profile friendly in Costa Rica on Friday, August 5, before the tournament kick start on Wednesday, August 10, 2022.

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