CNMI preps for 2 more AFC tournaments

The CNMI’s U16 and U19 national training pools will resume their practice sessions later this month in preparation for two Asian Football Confederation-organized tournaments.

A member of the CNMI U14 training pool kicks the ball during a scrimmage with the CNMI Women’s All-Stars last Wednesday at the Oleai Sports Complex. Some members of the U14 training pool are eligible for the U16 team that is invited to the AFC U-16 Championship India 2016 Qualifiers.
(Roselyn B. Monroyo)

The Commonwealth, which has earlier announced its participation in the AFC U14 Regional Festival of Football 2015 (East Region), is also invited to the AFC U-19 Championship Bahrain 2016 Qualifiers that will run from Sept. 28 to Oct. 6 with the venue yet to be determined. The CNMI players are in Group H of the qualifier and will be challenging teams from South Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and Chinese-Taipei.

The CNMI will send a team to the AFC U-16 Championship India 2016 Qualifiers, too, joining Timor Leste, Malaysia, Laos, and the Philippines in Group G. The U16 qualifier will be held from Sept. 12 to 20, but the venue has also yet to be selected. Interested AFC members have until June 22 to turn in hosting bid documents for the two youth competitions.

Incidentally, the CNMI will also resume their training session on June 22 and the two pools are expected to work doubly hard with about three months left before they see action in off-island tournaments.

“There’s a lot of work to be done. We need to strengthen the players’ fundamentals and work on their stamina as we will be playing against faster and stronger teams in both competitions,” Northern Mariana Islands Football Association coaching staff member Jersh Angeles said in an interview with Saipan Tribune yesterday.

“We will be resuming training on June 22 and with players on school break, coach Seki (Kiyoshi Sekiguchi) may hold practice twice a day. We will wait for him to decide how many times a week we will have the training sessions,” Angeles added.

Sekiguchi is off-island for a coaching certification course and called a two-week break on the training sessions of both pools. However, according to Angeles, Sekiguchi instructed members of the pool to work on their own during the break.

“Coach advised them to try conditioning running and other exercise/drills that will help improve the player’s stamina. In the previous practices, coach Seki has developed and implemented a short, but fast-paced training regimen to push the players to work on their speed,” Angeles said.