In a wonderful year for Colombian women’s teams This Wednesday a new challenge begins, to measure where the country’s youth soccer is compared to the rest of the planet.
The team he leads Carlos Paniagua debuted in the U-20 World Cup against Germany, three times world champion in the category, at the Morera Soto stadium in Alajuela, starting at 12 noon in Colombia. The game will be seen on the HD2 signal of Canal Caracol, DirecTV Sports and the Fifa+ application.
Paniagua made the presentation of his team in a press conference together with the coaches of his three rivals: Kathrin Peter, from Germany; Ana Galindo, from Mexico, and Gemma Lewis, from New Zealand.
The optimistic vision of Carlos Paniagua, coach of Colombia
“The group is strengthened, happy, because five important players joined who came from defending the National Team in the Copa América that we organized and who got the quota for the World Cup and the Olympics,” said Paniagua.
Gisela Robledo, Ángela Barón, Gabriela Rodríguez and Natalia Giraldo are part of that list that was in the Cup. But there is one that, even for Fifa, stands out above the rest: Linda Caicedo, who has just been highlighted as the best Cup player. On the tournament’s official website, the Deportivo Cali striker appears as one of the figures to follow in the competition.
“The five come very strengthened, with the experience they gained at the senior level, and among them, Linda Caicedo, and the group received them very well. The National Team has just finished an excellent South American game in Chile and is waiting for the game with Germany. Obviously, all this is football and it is a party that we are going to start living”, added the coach.
Mental strength, one of the keys to what is to come
In these youth categories, mental work is key to achieving the objectives. Colombia reached the semifinal of this World Cup in 2010 and from that group was born the great base of the senior team that is still represented today with players like Daniela Montoya and Liana Salazar. This group, although they have good experience and even just won gold at the Bolivarianos de Valledupar, they still have to deal with anxiety.
“We have Rafael Zabaraín, who is the National Team’s psychologist, who handles all the mental part of them, so that they are calm, so that they are not so anxious. He will always be anxious and especially on the eve of his debut in a world championship. When the judge whistles, those nerves are lost over the course of the game”, explained Paniagua.
“Rafael’s work is very important: he has been with them not only now, but in the process of the sub 17, the sub 20”, he added.
Paniagua was already in a Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica, in the coaching staff headed by Felipe Taborda: the 2014 U-17. That team did not pass the first phase. Now there is a factor that changes everything: schedules.
“For us, noon, 11 am here, is an atypical time. In 2014, the games were in the afternoon and at night, never in the morning. Fortunately for us, in the last microcycles we worked in Barranquilla, which is even hotter, and they are used to this temperature. But all this goes into the background, it is the debut in the World Cup, “said Paniagua.
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