India’s head coach Igor Stimac stands for his or her nationwide anthem earlier than the beginning of the Asian Cup Group B soccer match between Syria and India at Al Bayt Stadium in Al Khor, Qatar, Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP
India ended their Asian Cup marketing campaign pointless and goal-less, and head coach Igor Stimac admitted that his group wants gamers with confidence in entrance of opposition objective, a big assertion contemplating the possible retirement of talismanic striker Sunil Chhetri within the subsequent few years.
It’s no secret that the Indian group lacks a high quality striker, other than the 39-year-old Chhetri, although Stimac understandably would usually play down such considerations previously.
But, he selected to be candid after India misplaced 0-1 to Syria on Jan 23 to crash out of the Asian Cup with an all-loss file.
Finding a brand new striker
“Scoring goals comes with having good goal scorers in the team, people with confidence in front of goal,” Stimac said at the post-match conference.
“The team produced enough chances to score enough goals. You all know why we are not scoring goals at international level. It will happen when we start having Indian players in centre forward positions (at club level). Only then we’re going to have many more goal scorers for national team.
“So, kindly raise that question somewhere else, not here,” he mentioned, clearly referring to the dearth of Indians in centre ahead positions within the Indian Super League golf equipment.
India misplaced all their three group matches and conceded six targets within the match, the worst in all of the 5 editions the nation had participated. They misplaced 0-2 to Australia and 0-3 to Uzbekistan earlier than the solitary objective defeat to Syria.
“It’s a superb studying expertise for us. Overall, in three video games, we proved we will compete at this degree. Obviously, everyone sees the lacking factors when India performs. (Regarding) the issues in Indian soccer, as a lot as you give that a lot you get on the finish. That is my conclusion of this match,” said Stimac, who had demanded a four-week pre-tournament training camp but got just 10 days.
This was the first time India returned without scoring a goal, with Chhetri, the lone ranger for a long time, also having an ordinary outing considering his high standards.
The world’s third most prolific player among active footballers is in the twilight of his career and certainly has played his last Asian Cup. He had scored two goals each in the 2011 and 2019 editions of the Asian Cup, where India also failed to qualify for the knock-out rounds.
No magic wand, says Stimac
Stimac mentioned he doesn’t possess a magic wand to take Indian soccer ahead in a brief span of time.
“India never qualified for U-23 AFC Asian Cup. Then how will we have good senior players? How can we expect good results at senior level if we don’t qualify for U-18, U-20 and U-23 Asian Cup?”, he requested. “I’m not a magician, I don’t have a magic wand. I’m just a hardworking guy who is asking you to be patient, as good things in football don’t happen overnight.
“I promise to take you to the third round of World Cup Qualifiers in the next 12 months. After that things need to speed up with investments, with foreign coaches coming in to take charge of Indian football academies.”
Talking about his game plan in the Syria match, he said, “We had a clear plan to take the game into 60 minutes with a clean sheet and to bring on the fresh legs, which I was hoping would give us something and get an impact to this team in the last 30 minutes, which obviously didn’t happen.”
“I feel Udanta (Singh) was the one one who got here instead and did a number of issues, others didn’t have any impression by any means,” rued the experienced coach, who is also a World Cup bronze winner for Croatia.
Defensive mainstay Sandesh Jhingan was taken off the field in the first minute of the second half due to an injury. Till then the match was scoreless. But, Stimac did not feel that Jhingan’s absence had a big impact on the result, saying other defenders such as Rahul Bheke and Subhasish Bose did quite well.
He warned that players who are “informal” of their method wouldn’t get their locations within the group.
Stimac, who acquired a yellow card through the Syria match, mentioned the referee was too harsh on India. “You cannot sanction each contact made by India and not sanction the other side. Just keep the same level of criteria throughout the 100 minutes.”
“Here we saw today, hitting a player off the ball, it’s a red card. That kind of behaviour (by a Syrian player) is a red card.”
Stimac additionally made an fascinating remark that the Syrian goal-scorer Omar Khrbin, the 2017 AFC Asian Footballer of the Year and presently enjoying in UAE Pro League, was value two occasions the mixed market worth of all of the 11 Indian gamers who began the match (4.5 million Euros vs 2.5 million Euros).
Source: www.thehindu.com
