One game at a time: Catoya

VENEZUELA coach Jose Catoya says even though today’s group D match against Germany will be the first time his side play in a Under-20 women’s soccer World Cup, they were honoured to be taking on the defending champions.
“It is Venezuela’s first time at the U20 World Cup,” Catoya said through an interpreter. “We are very honoured to be here and to play a team like Germany. It’s a great way to start the tournament and we will learn a lot from the experience.”
In terms of tactics, Catoya said his side were going to take it step by step.
“There is no objective for us, we’ll take the games step-by-step, one game at a time.”
Venezuela were the first team to arrive in Port Moresby last Thursday and coach Catoya said the reason for the early arrival was threefold.
“We trained in Venezuela on the island of Margarita which has a similar climate to PNG,” Catoya said.
“We came early to get used to the conditions but also to avoid the time difference (14 hours) to give ourselves a chance to prepare better.
Venezuela midfielder Yenifer Gimenez echoed her coach’s sentiments and said her side was ready to play.
“We’re hopeful that everything will be fine and that we’re here to do our best,” Gimenez said.
Germany coach Maren Meinert said she was satisfied with how her side had settled in and adjusted to local conditions.
She said that they anticipated an enthusiastic challenge from the South Americans.
“We’re looking forward to our opening match of the tournament against Venezuela,” Meinart said.
“I think this will be our first match against them at this level but everything has been good for us so far.”
German defender Rebecca Knaak said the first game would be special but they were not be expecting the Venezuelans to be easy beats.
“The first game is always a special one because every team wants to have a good start to the tournament, so we’ll do our best to win but we expect a very tough game from them,” Knaak said.
The other matches on today see Mexico and South Korea clash in the evening fixture at the NFS, while at the PNG Football Stadium at the Sir John Guise complex, France take on USA at 4pm, and Ghana and New Zealand face off at 7pm.