Football: Indian National Team news ...

[jayakris]

Do we get points for these? Or are these friendlies that do not count? In the ELO ratings, they are #82 and we are #162 or so. So, this is great. We get 7 ELO points and Oman loses 7. We need to play more such good teams. I think the coach said that you only improve if you are playing better teams. I agree. Let's get out of the 160-range. We are possibly better than that. But, I am not a big fan of the FIFA rankings. The ELO rankings seem "better" to me although teams move a bit too slowly there if they are not playing much.

The "slow movement" problem of ELO that you mention is a serious issue though.

Actually FIFA is using the ELO system since 2018. The only thing is that they started it from the rankings of the old system, as of 2018. So, whatever was the ranking we and Oman had in early 2019 hardly changed much till March 2020 when everything shut down. So the rankings are pretty much around where they were when the new system started, for most countries. We lucked out, because the change happened when the old system had (for that time being) over-ranked us to around 100, while it should've been around 125 in quality.

In my opinion, ELO is not great in soccer, and the new ranking system could even be worse than the previous one. The reason is that countries don't play enough matches for ELO to work. It will take 4 years worth of matches (50+) for it to make sense, but a countries' quality could change quite a lot during that period. If we had some perfect quality-ranking, moving up or down by 40% on one's position (100 to 60 or 20 to 12) is very much possible in football. A couple of key players and a coach change is enough for that. But 10-15 matches in a year is not enough for ELO to cause such moves. It moves probably 10-15% max after 15 matches in one year (some countries only play 10-12 on average)... Not good enough.The earlier system had drastically dropping weights (1, 0.5, 0.3, 0,2) for the latest 4 years results, and ELO does not have that kind of time-delay component in it, IIRC. ELO is certainly better, theoretically, but the time taken for enough matches to be played is the issue.

At least that is what I thought some 15-18 months ago when we were discussing it. I haven't looked into it much since then, though, with data.

[prasen9]

I agree. ELO should be updated to move faster. For example, India got 7 points and Oman lost 7 points for the draw. So, India moved maybe 1 spot from 162 and Oman moved a bit down. Can this 7 point movement be accelerated (artificially)? That way, the movement would be much more. I have not checked the math out to see what is warped if we say double these points. It possibly does not work.

[arjun2761]

Good result by India. Saw only parts of the game and the teams were not that different in quality with Oman being a little more physical and faster.

However, Oman's goal was a blunder by our goalie on a routine cross whereas our goal was a quality goal with a good cross and finish.

[arjun2761]

Our national team laid an egg with a 0-6 defeat to UAE. Not too surprised seeing how little quality we have even at the ISL level...

[prasen9]

We should have a ban on foreign strikers in the top-level league. And/or identify a group of Indian strikers and say that each team has to play at least one of them. It will artificially inflate their market price but that can be handled by putting a cap, designing performance-based pay, etc.

[Atithee]

Why not in IPL then?

[prasen9]

Because, we do not have a problem in our cricket team. We have the opposite problem. In the IPL mediocre Indian players get a ton of salary and some lose the impetus to improve themselves. If we make it that only world-class players will get the riches of the IPL, then the Indian players will have more of an incentive to work harder, get to better fitness standards, and skills.

I am in general anti-regulation but when there is a problem, I am for minimally circumscribed regulation. There has been a striker problem for a long-time.

In the IPL, if there is an issue that our wicket-keepers are getting shunted out or our spinners are getting shunted out because they are not that good, a 3-year reservation to improve that class of players, e.g., pace-bowling allrounders is fine with me.

[OliverPullout]

Our kids are used to watching football with me and its news. Therefore, they do not play football on the street and do not interfere with people.

[sameerph]

We lost to higher ranked Qatar 0-1 yesterday in a freindly. It seems that we had to play with 10 players for a long time due to send off. Looks a like a decent results despite the loss.

[arjun2761]

I believe the loss was in the WC qualifier.

Pretty amazing that we only lost by only 1 goal after being outshot 38-1. Our goalie must have played a heck of a game...

[jayakris]

We lost to higher ranked Qatar 0-1 yesterday in a freindly. It seems that we had to play with 10 players for a long time due to send off. Looks a like a decent results despite the loss.

Actually not a friendly, as Arjun said. This was the joint qualifiers for 2022 World Cup and 2023 AFC Asian Cup. I think we are still alive for it (barely, if at all), but in 4th place in the pool. I need to check.

[jaydeep]

Yes, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu had a hell of game ... We played match with 10-man after an early expulsion of Rahul Bheke in the 17th minute.
Check respect for each other after the match.

[jayakris]

We just beat Bangaldesh 2-0, with Chhettri (who else?) scoring both the goals. So we have 6 points, and are in third place in the pool. One match against Afghanistan remains. Win it, and we will be in the Asian Cup qualifying third round, I think.

[Omkara]

We just beat Bangaldesh 2-0, with Chhettri (who else?) scoring both the goals. So we have 6 points, and are in third place in the pool. One match against Afghanistan remains. Win it, and we will be in the Asian Cup qualifying third round, I think.

Yes. We have to beat Afghanistan. I saw that in the match against Bangladesh we had 76% of time in control of the game. Yet we scored only in the end.

[PKBasu]

Yes, we seem to have dominated play and possession, but only managed to score both goals (through the eternal Sunil Chhettri) in the last 12 minutes. All's well that ends well!