PANAJI: Thomas Dennerby has coached teams at three World Cups, two Olympics and two European championships, so he was better equipped to handle India’s traumatic exit from the AFC Women’s Asian Cup 2022.
India women’s coach prepared the team for six months with some high-profile international friendly tours to Bahrain, UAE, Sweden and Brazil. When the tournament kicked off in Navi Mumbai last week, the hosts started with a dominating draw. But the promise of at least a quarterfinal spot quickly evaporated as a dozen-odd Covid-19 positive cases meant there were not enough players to take the field against Chinese Taipei last Sunday.
The result – a cruel exit from the Asian Cup at home, after just 90 minutes of game time.
“This is my worst-ever experience as head coach,” Dennerby said during an online media interaction on Wednesday. “Almost six months of sacrifice, six months of dreams, six months of passion. The team and (coaching) staff did not even go home over Christmas and New Year’s Eve, all to stay safe (from Covid-19). We are devastated, our dreams are forever killed, but not by the team or AIFF (All India Football Federation).”
Dennerby was critical of the Asian Football Confederation’s role in India’s exit and said the continent’s governing body not just failed to properly maintain the bio-secure bubble, they also did not offer any solution.
“We are not happy with AFC’s organisation and the lack of solution-oriented dialogue. We think that it destroyed our dreams. The biggest problem is that AFC had no emotions for players, no understanding about human beings,” said Dennerby.
The Swedish coach has seen all email exchanges between the organisers and India when they were not in a position to name 13 players, a must for the match to go ahead or risk withdrawal from the competition, according to Article 4.1.
“You can say they didn’t even open the door, just a little bit to see if we can do something about this,” said Dennerby. “What was painful for us was the lack of solution or dialogue.”
India offered to play with the nine players who were fit, but that didn’t matter. Then another proposal to register the under-17 players – inside another bio-secure bubble – also didn’t cut much ice with the organisers.
“During the day of the match (while waiting for test results), the girls were sitting in their rooms, all nervous, heartbroken, crying in their rooms, and (there were) no answers. Match, no match, shall I prepare or not. It was a very sad moment when the (Covid-19) test results arrived at 5.30pm, the time we should have been on the bus for the game. In total, we ended up with 12 players having Covid, two players with bone fractures and only nine (fit) players,” said Dennerby.
India are the only team to have reported so many Covid-19 positive cases and are now out of the competition. So, just what went wrong with the hosts who landed in Mumbai from Kerala on January 13 and all of them tested negative?
“The first case of Covid happened the day we came out of quarantine. How was it possible? The first feeling was that it came from someone inside the bubble. The hotel staff were PCR tested in the afternoon on January 17. The result was sent to AFC on 18th and AFC did not send the report to the hotel till 19th around 1:30pm, a whole day later.
“Seven hotel staff were infected. It includes India team coordinator, kitchen staff, chef, housekeeping and service staff. All the ones taking care of us, cooking the food, serving, cleaning our rooms, while we were inside isolated,” said Dennerby.
A total of 19 players and six staff have now tested positive for Covid-19.
