Kolkata: Germany’s Under-17 coach Christian Wueck on Wednesday brushed aside talk of the youth team not winning any World Cup compared to the senior side’s four trophies will play on the minds of his young players, stating the idea is to develop players for the ‘A-team’.
“No. In no case,” Wueck replied to a question on whether his charges are rattled by the thought of Germany senior team bagging four World Cups including the last one in 2014.
“I think it’s very important for us to play in Germany that we have to show good development to prepare us to play for the A-team. It’s important for each player to have this tournament and have European championships to develop,” the coach said.
Germany’s best finish at a U-17 World Cup has been fourth place, in 1985. They have participated in the tournament only four times.
The Germans finished second in Group C behind Iran, who surprisingly thrashed them 4-0 in the tournament’s biggest upset so far.
Germany started their campaign by beating Costa Rica 2-1 and getting past Guinea 3-1 in their final game.
In the round-of-16 clash, they thrashed Colombia 4-0 to enter the quarters. Asked if playing the match in New Delhi where at this time of the year the weather was different to Kolkata, posed a problem, the coach said: “No it’s not important where we play. I think it’s very important for us that we have a good pitch. So I think the pitch in Delhi is very good, the pitch here is also OK. So it will be a very good game.”
In yesterday’s last-16 match, Ghana booked their place in the quarters, beating fellow Africans and tournament debutants Niger 2-0.
Meanwhile, Japan coach Yoshiro Moriyama feels his boys need more high-intensity battles at home now in order to keep improving after they lost 5-3 on penalties to England on Tuesday.
Japan crashed out of the competition after playing a goalless draw in the 90 minutes of normal time, with Hinata Kida’s shot from the spot being saved by England goalkeeper Curtis Anderson.
“What we tried was to play in our own style,” coach Moriyama said. “Some things worked and some did not. England are a strong team. We felt we did have a chance to win and had a game plan. We need to improve on our technique, speed, determination on the pitch, accuracy and intensity. We need more battles with intensity within Japan.”
Japan were very defensive in the first half thwarting England’s forays into their territory while late in the second half the Asian heavyweights attacked and could have got a goal.
“I was very impressed by the players,” the coach said. “They ran till the last minute. Now my two-and-a-half-year journey is over. We need to improve power for goal and accuracy. I want players to use this energy to develop themselves.
“The match was planned and we stuck to our plans. We wanted to defend well for the first half and bring pace little by little. We used the last 20 minutes for rhythm. We only lacked a goal.”
Moriyama added that they had a lot of leaders on the pitch, ruing not being able to score in the second period.
“There were several leaders and I could hear a lot of voices,” he said “In the first half there was a lot of pressure from England and our players played well. We had our share too in the second half but we could not hit the target.”
