GRENOBLE, France — A rousing welcome to the team’s base hotel here yesterday set the tone for the Reggae Girlz as they officially felt the Fifa Women’s World Cup fever ahead of tomorrow’s kick-off.

The welcome reception, conducted by members of Fifa’s organising committee, saw the Girlz being greeted by Mayor of Grenoble Eric Piolle as well as some young, adoring fans chanting “Allez, Reggae Girlz”, which translates “Go, Reggae Girlz”.

That excitement from the hotel spilled over on to the field at Complexe Sportiff Vieux Melchi in Sassenage, where Head Coach Hue Menzies and his team conducted their first full training session in two days to fine-tune ahead of Sunday’s historic opener against Brazil.

After conducting a short session at Groupama OL Training Center in Lyon on Tuesday, which was focused solely on recovery, the team once again took to the field for a two-hour session focused mainly on strengthening tactical areas.

“Obviously, we are starting to get our acclimation process into Grenoble…We thought the session was another successful one [as] we kind of focused on changing points of attacks and we worked a lot on that today (yesterday). We are still trying to keep the ball a little bit more, and I thought we looked a little bit better with that.

“We have become a better team with each session and the players are much more relaxed and they really enjoyed the facilities which look and feel much better from the last time I came here. So that part of it is good, and it’s just an acclimation process. They know their schedule and, as you can tell, the spirits have been good,” Menzies told the Jamaica Observer.

Menzies pointed to the significance of correcting their flaws in every facet of the game, as their date with the highly rated Brazilians is now three days away.

“We know what we want to accomplish and so now is an important time for us to get things right, and each training session provides us with the opportunity to test ourselves, to learn, and to develop on our style of play.

“We know that Brazil and all the other teams will give us tough competition that will test the resolve and resilience of this team,” Menzies reasoned.

“We are now on the Fifa schedule, so that helps. We don’t really have to worry about doing anything extra; we have some Fifa obligations that we have to take care of, but it’s within means and it’s not too far from here. So I think we are right on point where we can just settle in and focus on football,” he added.

Following their opener against Brazil at Stade des Alpes in Grenoble on Sunday, the 53rd-ranked Jamaicans, the first Caribbean team to qualify for the World Cup, will then tackle Italy and Australia in Group C on June 14 and 18, respectively.

After the the group stage, the top-two teams will automatically progress to the June 23-25 Round of 16, where they will be joined by the four best third-placed teams. From there, teams will then progress to the June 27-29 quarter-finals to battle for semi-final berths, then the final.