Dennerby keen to give more match time to youngsters in India women's friendly against Jordan | OneFootball

Indian women's football team head coach, Thomas Dennerby has confirmed that he will give match time to more players in their second international friendly against hosts Jordan on Friday.

The Indian team beat Egypt 1-0 in their first international friendly on Tuesday and will look to secure another victory on Friday, though Dennerby reiterated that the whole point of these games are to give opportunities to youngsters.

"We are trying to build for the longer term. We need to start giving match time to the younger players. The focus is not so much on the results, though we do want to win. The main focus is on performance and giving opportunities to young players," he said ahead of the game.

Dennerby, who has coached the women's team of Sweden and Nigeria in the past has highlighted the importance of using the FIFA windows to play international matches. The aim should be to play games in every open FIFA window and add some extra games before competitions.

"It's a good way to start playing games again. A small three-nation tournament. There is no special reason behind it other than to build for the future. On the basis of FIFA rankings, Jordan is a much better team at 63rd as against 59th of India. On the other hand, Egypt, which India beat 1-0 on Tuesday, is ranked 95th.

The match against Egypt last Tuesday was the first one for India since it was forced to withdraw from the group stage of the AFC Asian Cup in January after they failed to field a team due to a Covid-19 outbreak inside its bio-bubble in Mumbai.