As under 18 SAFF Championship will kick-off on 18th September in Bhutan, Maldives under 19 team preparations are in top-speed under Coach Ihsan.

Under 19 junior team has being training double , morning and evening, per day during these past weeks. Speaking to PSM Sports coach ihsan expressed that the time period to prepare the under 19 was not as his expectations.

“ I believe the time we got to get ready for the tournament is not enough. If we have more times we can prepare much better. But we have and are doing well in the given time. To prepare a junior team like under 19 we need more time. Because these players are still developing. Some players are technically very good and some players still needs attention on certain areas. Though, players have worked very hard and i see immense improvement in them.”

Maldives is grouped with Nepal, Sril Lanka in group B. Speeking about the fellow group nations, Ihsan expressed his opinion about Nepal.

“ Nepal is doing very well. They have a very good youth system. That we can see from the past 3 or 4 years that they have reached so far than couple of years earlier. We believe they will be very good.”

Coach Ihsan also highlighted that Maldives juniors do lack competitve matches during these preparations unlike our neighbouring nations. (India and Bhutan camped abroad in preparations for U18 SAFF)

“These players need experiences from the competitive matches, which we do lack. We are training double sessions per day , morning and night, for the past couple of weeks.”

Unlike other times, under 19 junior national side has played many friendly matches afainst numbers of first division team as coach Ihsan expects to deliver the best possible experience to these youth players. TC Sports, Maziya, Thinadhoo comes in the list.

“ I would like to show my gratitude and appreciate the support from the first division teams for their support.”

Not only the footballing community, coach Ihsan also speaks about the support and contribution for the parents of the players.

“ Many of the players in the squad are students still studying. It takes a lot of support from the parents to send their kids to these trainings, sometimes two times a day. So we do really thanks to the parents for the support.”