The Vodafone Fijian national Under-16 girls’ team will be cut from 32 to 25 today in preparation for the 2017 OFC U16 Girls Championship in Samoa in August.

Coach Marika Rodu said yesterday the selection process for the final 25 has been hard as the girls have showcased raw talent.

“This week has been a very challenging one,” he said.

“After our work this week we have managed to screen through a lot of them. It is important that we discuss with them, those that will make it to the next round and it is also crucial to talk to those who will not make it.

“It is difficult to select those who have raw talent because you just don’t know what they are going to surprise you with and they keep improving every day. It makes life difficult for me as a coach to cut the squad down but in terms of criteria that we will be using, I think that we will fine tune and streamline what we need to do in terms of character of the girls that we will be selecting.”

The 25 selected today are going to camp at the Fiji Football Association headquarters in Vatuwaqa where they will train together for the next three months.