Head coach of the Under-17 girls’ national football team Richard Forde believes better systems must be put in place if they are to improve their performances on the regional and international stages.
Forde was speaking to Barbados TODAY, following the team’s disappointing showing in the Concacaf Under-17 Women’s World Cup Qualifiers, where they failed to win a single game.
Competing in Group F, they were thrashed 6-0 by El Salvador and 8-2 by Trinidad and Tobago in their opening two games, and while they put up a much better fight in their final match, they still went down 4-2 to hosts Curaçao.
“For the girls I think it was a big learning experience. In terms of the other teams, they had a number of overseas-based players who played in high-quality clubs or universities, but it was an experience for our players and one that we take a lot of lessons from and one that we intend to capitalise on and move forward from,” said Forde, who pointed to the massive gap in experience between Barbados and the other teams.
“One of the things that I found out while I was there and speaking to a number of coaches is that most of these players have played more than 25, 30 games already, while our players here have only played, probably nine to 12 games in a season.
“Because our pool is so small in terms of our girls, we had at least seven girls who have just represented us at the Under-14 level, so we are still in a sense building and growing, and we need to find some ways where we can introduce a number of girls to the game and then build from there. It will take some time, but I don’t think it’s impossible,” the head coach added.
Forde believes a collaboration between schools and clubs is critical moving forward, beginning with a league competition for girls.
“Well, as I said, we have a very small pool and where we can find most of these children would be in the schools. You don’t have to be elaborate, but you can start having the girls play constantly.
“You know, it might be a struggle because when you look at some secondary schools, they might only have one physical education teacher who goes out with the boys, and you might need more additional people to help with the girls, but I think that if we don’t make a start, we still continue to say that we don’t have enough personnel,” Forde said.
“There are a number of coaches on the island who are qualified in the area of women’s football and I think it’s time enough that we can use them to get this started.”
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