Matías Vila and his new role in the Indian National Team

As part of the Indian women’s national team’s tour of Buenos Aireswhich has four friendlies against Las Leonas, Matias Vilaformer player for Los Leones and Banco Provincia, spoke hand in hand with AM850.com about his arrival to the coaching staff of the Asian team as Assistant Coach.

His arrival to the Indian National Team and the call of Sjoerd Marijne

“My arrival came after having worked two seasons at the club level in the Netherlands Women’s First Division. When the current coach, the Dutch Sjoerd Marijne, arrived in December, he called me one day and told me ‘I’m going to join the Indian women’s team, I want you to come with me and you have to be there in 10 days’. We knew each other from the Netherlands and he had been my coach when I was a player in Holland. We always had a good relationship“, he closed the beginning of his statement with laughter.

And then he continued: “Thanks to my family we were able to organize and the calendar also allows me to do a lot of comings and goings. I am here taking on the challenge, with a contract until Los Angeles 2028. It is a team that is going to compete, has the conditions and potential. “My challenge and that of the CT now is to organize them, especially defensively, and little by little to climb the ranking.”

The change in his life after arriving in India

“The training periods I am in India, which are periods of three, four or even five weeksit depends on the tournaments we have ahead of us. And then traveling to tournaments, this year it is very busy at the competition level: After this tour in Buenos Aires with Las Leonas there is the Nations Cup to promote to the Pro League, then comes the World Cup, then the Asian Games which is the qualification for the 2028 Olympic Games and also an Asian Champions Trophy. There is a lot of competition, so I I fit in a little between training periods in India and after the competition, generally I have a couple of weeks to return to Buenos Aires“Vila explained.

The level found in the players and the friendlies with Las Leonas

“Our objective was to come here to Argentina to build, to start searching and finding the team for the World Cup. It was difficult at the beginning, mainly in the first game or in some isolated quarters. They are girls who are not very used to this type of international contact and competition, there they do not have a local league, they only train and play games when they have these opportunities or tournaments.. It’s hard to get into that international rhythm but in this third friendly, which we won 2 to 1, they did well. It was a more even match, more even in terms of numbers. “That made us take advantage of the opportunities we have and not be vulnerable in defense either.”he concluded.