Today, three days before T&T faces Ecuador away from home in the first leg of a two-match 2015 Fifa Women’s World Cup playoff, this country’s players and staff will arrive in Guayaquil, a city at sea level.
This comes after six days of high-altitude training in Mexico City, Mexico, where head coach Randy Waldrum and several support staff members, including a conditioning coach, team doctor, trainer and a massage therapist pooled their skills together to prepare the players for competition in Quito, Ecuador’s capital.
The match will be played at the Estadio Olímpico Atahualpa a 40,000-plus seater stadium, in the world’s highest official capital city. “We need to be at sea level for two days and then go back up to altitude, as this is what the science of altitude preparations tells us,” Waldrum explained in correspondence from Mexico, yesterday. “The science we are using with our conditioning coach is next level.
We are monitoring each player with heart rate monitors and such so we can keep an eye on each individual and how they are coping. The programme we have also tells us how many calories we are burning per session so our nutritionist can better refuel our athletes individually and collectively. We are leaving no stones unturned,” the Houston Dash and former T&T Under-17 women’s coach added.
The T&T Football Association (TTFA), Waldrum said, “has been great in providing us the necessary personnel required to qualify the team.” Regarding the fitness of individual players, some of whom lacked match fitness and carried knocks at the Concacaf Women’s Championship, Waldrum said he preferred to refrain from discussing such details close to the first leg match.
“Needless to say, many of whom were injured during the Concacaf tournament are getting healthier each day. I feel better about them playing in this first leg, so that is all good news.”
Asked if he was concerned that the college players, who weren’t made available for training in Mexico, may be unable to keep pace with the rest of the players in Ecuador, Waldrum responded: “The science tells us that if players cannot train in altitude, then the best way to cope with it is to come in 48-66 hours before the game and play close to time of arrival.” He said the US college-based players will meet the team by Friday.
Waldrum, who was named senior women’s team head coach in July, prior to his team’s championship win at T&T-hosted CFU Women’s Caribbean Cup, said he is grateful for the support his team has received over the past four months.