The India U-23 football team for the Guangzhou Asian Games is set to kick starts their campaign against Kuwait on November 7. Finally taking off for China on the morning of October 25, after cancelling their departure twice on Oct 23 and 24 the team next face defending champions Qatar on November 9. India is drawn in group D alongside, defending champions Qatar, Kuwait and Singapore. They face Singapore on November 11.
Travelling to China two weeks prior to the actual kick-off, the team was supposed to play series of friendly matches. However with of change of plans, they are now slated to play just one friendly. These shows the lackadaisical attitude of the concern authorities for the team doing well in the competition.
However Coach Sukhwinder Singh optimistically said that “We will play only one friendly in China. What a friendly does is to some extent halts the training session as a day prior to the game and the day after, we can’t have a full fledged practice which ultimately affects us as we don’t have enough days to prepare.”
Earlier in the month, the team had a camp for about two weeks in Cuttack, Orissa during which they played Vietnam just to lose 3-1. Despite the lost, the team is in good shape and is confident of doing well in the Asiad. The former JCT Coach is taking the whole squad to China as a precaution against any untoward incident uncalled for.
“This is because we are travelling to China at least two weeks before our first match and prior to that if we may have some injury or some player suffering from illness, we can immediately replace him,” pointed the experienced coach.
In the final draw, twenty four teams are divided into six groups with four team each. The winner of all the groups progressed into the Quarter Final while the two best team amongst the runners up also join the six winners.
So India,s chances of playing beyond the league stage is slim being grouped with Qatar and Kuwait. So, it now solely depends on the boys as to how they are going to keep the hope of Millions of Indians alive.
Good Luck Guys.
The Squad:
Goalkeepers : Karanjit Singh, Laxmikant Kattimani, Gurpreet Singh Sadhu
Defenders: Denzil Franco, Abhishek Das, Robert Lalthalma, Rowilson Rodrigues, Raju Gaikwad,
Inderpreet Singh, Dharmaraj Ravanan, Lalrozama Fanai.
Midfielders: Lalrindika Ralte, Joaquim Abranches, Jewel Raja Shaikh, Jibon Singh, Manish Mathani,
Shilton D'Silva, Tirthankar Sarkar, Subodh Kumar
Strikers: Jeje Lalpekhlua, Balwant Singh, Jagtar Singh, Malsawmfela ,
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