Teams for FIFA U20 make initial visit to Moncton
Representatives from the teams that will play in Moncton this summer in the FIFA Under 20 Women's World Cup are visiting the city this week.
Moncton will host the Group C matches involving teams from England, Nigeria, Mexico and South Korea.
They checked out the facilities on Monday, with Mayor George LeBlanc welcoming them to a cold and frozen Moncton Stadium.
"I promise it'll be warmer in the summer," said LeBlanc.
Gerardo Lepe, the team manager for Mexico, was in the Maritimes the last time the event was held in Canada in 2002. He said he isn't worried.
"Right now, it's very cold but the people have been very warm with us," he said.
Lepe is encouraging recent immigrants from Mexico in Moncton to come out and cheer on the team this summer.
"This morning at the hotel one of the people who works for the hotel, they said, "Hey, we have Mexicans here in Moncton.'
England manager Laura Grasset could make out many of the 8,000 stadium seats peeking through the snow.
"The stadium is amazing," she said. "I mean for us at that age group, we're used to being in smaller stadiums. It's going to be amazing."
The stadium's will have a artificial turf field, someting Grasset says the players are getting used to.
"A lot of nations do it now," she said. "I mean the weather is becoming a problem for everyone.
"For us we've had a lot of flooding this year so we know now as well that you can't always rely on your grass pitches," she said. "You can't rely on the weather and to be fair a lot of the girls will train and play on artificial pitches already, so for them it's probably not that much of a jump."
Teams from China and the United States will also play matches in Moncton. Representatives of those teams will visit the city today.
The tournament starts August 6. Moncton is one of four Canadian cities hosting the U20 Women's World Cup. Montreal, Toronto and Edmonton are the other host cities.
