NAVI MUMBAI: The Sofia Fuente, the Spanish captain and goalkeeper, made a final statement before she exited the media centre which can easily be construed as a warning: "Our dream begins when we wake up tomorrow".
The Under-17 Women's World Cup defending champions, Spain, who boarded the flight to Mumbai with the best record among the 16 participating teams, clearly are in serious championship mode as they get ready for battle in Group C with Colombia, Mexico and China as the other teams.
Kenio Gonzalo, the Spanish coach, looks like a man who is carrying a heavy responsibility comfortably on his capable shoulders.
Given the chance, Gonzalo can still pull off some mean plays if he wears any colour, but he is here to mentor the girls. Spain's 2018 World champs in the U-17 age group, went on to win the U-20 world title too in Chile some weeks ago so age group football is taken seriously in Spain.
They have been runners up once and semi-finalists twice. Only North Korea can boast of a better record having won the tournament, in its sixth year, twice and finished runners once. But they are not part of the tournament.
Spain face Colombia at DY Patil stadium and the intense rivalry between these two countries, 24 hours before their clash was there to be seen. There were a few Colombian fans posing questions and it was evidently clearly the most important clash was between these two nations.
Gonzalo revealed that Spain had every possible angle covered and they too tell the players to calm down before the first match, through a psychiatrist and through the wisdom of the older people in the group that has travelled with the team.
Colombia, on the other hand, have taken the World Cup so seriously that they checked into India on October 8, but have been living in the India timings 12 days before their departure date, waking one hour earlier each day so they their bodies are tuned in.
Colombian captain Mary Jose Alvarez says she did not find anything unusual in terms of adjustment. "We even woke up as early as 3 am to get our bodies used to time Zone. After landing here, she even found the food to be similar but for the quantity of spices used."
