U.S. Under-17s head coach Richie Williams has boasted that his wards
were prepared to match the world champions, the Golden Eaglets when both
sides clash in the group opener at the 2015 FIFA U-17 World Cup,
tomorrow in Chile.
Their opening fixture comes up at the Estadio Nacional Julio MartÃnez Prádanos in Santiago De Chile before battling hosts Chile and Croatia at the Estadio Sausalito in Vina Del Mar and Estadio Francisco Sanchez Rumoroso Coquimbo respectively.
Williams also added that his players were not intimidated by the frightening record of their Nigerian counterparts.
“I think it’s a great challenge and I think the guys will be excited. It’s a great opportunity to compete against the champions of the last World Cup and I think our guys are going to have a lot of energy, they’re going to be excited and they’re going to be ready to play, so we’re looking forward to it,” he told ussoccer.com
“I think every World Cup game is important. You can’t say one is any more important than the other. You can’t overlook any team. It’s a World Cup game and everybody’s got to be ready to go.
“Whether you think they’re the strongest opponent or the weakest opponent, it’s the World Cup and all the games are very important and very competitive and anything could happen, especially if you’re not ready to play.”
“We had four good days of training there before we open up against Nigeria.”
“When you look over the two-plus years we’ve been together, we’ve had the ability to push forward and score goals with a lot of talented attacking players, but also on the defensive end we’ve had a lot of great games where we’ve defended well.
We were able to play a good amount of international matches and domestic matches and we hope through all of those experiences we have a really balanced team of 21 players that comes together and gets positive results.”
Their opening fixture comes up at the Estadio Nacional Julio MartÃnez Prádanos in Santiago De Chile before battling hosts Chile and Croatia at the Estadio Sausalito in Vina Del Mar and Estadio Francisco Sanchez Rumoroso Coquimbo respectively.
Richie Williams
“I think it’s a great challenge and I think the guys will be excited. It’s a great opportunity to compete against the champions of the last World Cup and I think our guys are going to have a lot of energy, they’re going to be excited and they’re going to be ready to play, so we’re looking forward to it,” he told ussoccer.com
“I think every World Cup game is important. You can’t say one is any more important than the other. You can’t overlook any team. It’s a World Cup game and everybody’s got to be ready to go.
“Whether you think they’re the strongest opponent or the weakest opponent, it’s the World Cup and all the games are very important and very competitive and anything could happen, especially if you’re not ready to play.”
“We had four good days of training there before we open up against Nigeria.”
“When you look over the two-plus years we’ve been together, we’ve had the ability to push forward and score goals with a lot of talented attacking players, but also on the defensive end we’ve had a lot of great games where we’ve defended well.
We were able to play a good amount of international matches and domestic matches and we hope through all of those experiences we have a really balanced team of 21 players that comes together and gets positive results.”
