Five matches played. Five matches lost. Sixteen goals conceded and only three scored. This was the Indian women's football team's record in 2021, before Swedish coach Thomas Dennerby took charge in August. It would be an understatement to say the Swede's tenure has got off to a promising start. In the three matches so far under Dennerby's guidance, India have won two and lost one, scoring nine goals and conceding only twice.
The latest win, the 5-0 thrashing of Bahrain on its own turf, surprised many. But, the vastly experienced coach, who was in charge of the Swedish women's team for seven years and won the Swedish manager of the year award (women's football) in 2004, knows all too well that there are tougher challenges ahead. The three matches so far have been against lower-ranked opponents (UAE and Tunisia, before Bahrain). The next match, on October 13, against the Chinese Taipei (ranked 40, 17 places above India) is going to be the real test of the progress Dennerby has made so far.
"We expect a game," Dennerby told the media on October 11. "It will be much tougher, of course. For the first time on this exposure tour, our defence will be really under pressure. I hope that the girls can show that we have an organisation that can handle a little bit of better teams." However, he added that when the opponent is attacking more, that also opens up more space for India.
But, is the Indian attack potent enough to take advantage of such openings? The coach said that there had been major changes in the attacking game. "If you go back a while there were a lot of long balls," he said. "Now, we are trying to have more build-up - all the way from the goalkeeper, through the defensive line and midfield. We are now trying to send the crucial, penetrative or through passes. All with higher accuracy, because we play those passes from higher up in the pitch."
One of the most important things, he added, "is that the girls really understand that they are good footballers". They lost games this spring, he said, and that hurts your self confidence. "We could see some parts of that when we let in the goal [in the 1-0 loss] against Tunisia," he said. "That players get a little bit stressed. Of course, when you play football, you will not always be one goal up. When the other team scores first, you have to stay calm and follow your plan."
When they came under pressure, the players went back to "old behaviours", he said. "Maybe that is why we missed so many goal scoring chances. That is one of the things we need to work on. We are trying to support the girls every day. They have to feel comfortable, and understand that it is completely natural to miss a pass or a goal-scoring chance. Everybody does that. We are trying to boost them with self confidence."
The players will need all the support they can get. After the match against the Chinese Taipei, the team will go to Sweden to play against two of Dennerby's former employers. Hammarby IF and Djurgårdens IF - both top-tier sides which have won the Swedish women's league. At Hammarby, Dennerby had worked in the men's setup. At Djurgårdens, he was the last head coach to guide them to a league title (2004). The team was also runners-up in the 2005 UEFA Women's Champions League, after Dennerby left to take charge of the national team.
But, despite the prospect of facing such tough opponents, Dennerby is not too worried. “We need games where the opponents put us under pressure,” he said. "That will happened in the AFC Women's Asian Cup." The strong teams in Sweden, he said, will play at a faster pace and the Indian players will have to be fast with their decisions and more focused to get their first touch right. "Everything will have to be faster," he said.
Dennerby said that he would not be looking at the results but at how the team reacts to different situations during the game. "How we handle the game; if we are doing the right things," he said. "If we are trying to follow the match plan. If we decide to defend in a certain way. Where to start the pressure. We have what we call the confrontation line, where we start the press. The same when it comes to the attacking game. Are we doing the passes we were talking about. Are we trying to find the spaces, and so on. That is most important now."
Dennerby said that his team was "very very serious" in everything they do. "They want to learn," he said. "They work very hard every day. If we are doing running sessions, they work very hard. If we are going to the football field or going to the gym to lift heavy weights, they work very hard. There are no complaints from them about the hard training sessions. They understand that we are not preparing them for the exposure tour, but for the AFC Cup (January-February 2022)."
Key to the hopes of doing well in the tournament will be developing a football identity. As a coach who has managed at the highest levels of women's football, Dennerby knows this. He also knows that it will be vital to play to the strengths of his team. "Even if you have a vision. you always have to adjust a little bit," he said. "If I look at the profile of the players we have, it is very similar to the way I want a team to play. We have speed on the wings and that is important if you want to play behind the opponents defence line."
He said the attacking tactics will vary based on how the opposition plays. "If they are defending high we try to go behind them, if not, we have to play through the lines," he said. "We try to have unpredictability. Our opponents should never know if we are playing with short passes or trying to play long balls to our quick attackers. So, once or twice in a half, we try to send the long ball [after largely playing possession football].
“What we are searching for is to be unpredictable in attack, have good organisation in defence and speed, he said. "And we have speed in the team," he added. "So, that is good."
