Football: Indian National Team news ...

[jayakris]

The Intercontinental Cup final is on. I can't find a stream yet though.

Okay - http://www.vipboxtv.se/stream-india-vs-kenya-live-2 works (but don't click on anything, and close any window that may open, immediately)

And Sunil Chhetri scores AGAIN!!! 8th minute. Free kick from Thapa, and Sunil puts it in. Clever set-piece with a cross in front of the defenders in the box, for Sunil to find a hole through it. 1-0 India!!! His 7th goal in this tournament.

[jayakris]

Holy crap. Is Sunil Chhetri even human??? He scores his second!! 2-0 India in the 31st minute. Incredible first touch on a long aerial from Anas, on a breakaway! And he puts it in with a left foot tapper to the right of the diving goalie. What a player Chhetri is!

Chhetri is tied with Messi at #2 among active players, with 64 goals.

God, our guys are running circles around these Kenyans. Our first team is many levels up from when 2 or 3 are replaced by the bench. Amazing to see all the one touch passes and how well we handle the aerial balls. Sunil had a couple more chances just before the half. One on a curving free kick from right outside the box that went a bit over the bar, and another on a header he couldn't do well on a deft pass from Udanta. Sandesh, Narzari and Anas are all playing well in defense. Kotal playing well too. Narzari is a bit dumb at times with the ball after he makes some very skillful intercepts.

2-0 at the half.

[jayakris]

Lots of pressure from Kenya for the first 15 minutes of the second half. Our defense hanging on for dear life!

That continues. We're really having trouble holding the ball because we are all bunched at the back in defense now. We just need to slow the game down a bit. But totally unable to do that. Kenya is in our half constantly. We aren't exactly parking the bus. More like, we are unable to move the bus at all. But we do defend like our life depends on it. A terrific diving save off a free-kick by Gurpreet and a do-or-die tackle from Preetam Kotal. Sandesh was a little impaired but Anas made up for it. Udanta was all over the ground, and played a ton of defense. I didn't know that the 21 year old was that good!!! Man, we have so many talented youngsters.

And we win it!! 2-0 over Kenya!!

[Prashant]

Fantastic! This is so much better than we could have hoped for just a few years ago.

I hope that Chhetri inspires a larger cohort in the next age group.

[jaydeep]

Another superb match ... After an early super strikes from Sunil Chhetri, we defended well when put under the pressure in the second half.
Sunil Chhetri scored 8 goals in 4 games ... A Legend ...

[jaydeep]

What an atmosphere !!

https://www.facebook.com/TheIndianFootb ... 029581163/

[prasen9]

How does the NZ loss hurt wrt points? Overall, for the tournament, we gain or lose points/expected-ranking, Jay?

[jayakris]

How does the NZ loss hurt wrt points? Overall, for the tournament, we gain or lose points/expected-ranking, Jay?

Not a big deal. Only a difference of about 3 spots or so. We should drop by 3 or 4 spots now, but could have stayed right around where it is now with a win against NZL also.

By my calculations, we will drop a bit more by September, but should be still above #105... We will hopefully take some more "next steps" in 8 months by getting out of our pool at the Asian championships to the final 16. If we can get a couple of wins there, it would really help the rankings.

[jayakris]

What an atmosphere !! https://www.facebook.com/TheIndianFootb ... 029581163/

How did they organize the tricolor boards for the whole section and all that. A bunch of people were taking this pretty damn seriously.

Here is another one, on the celebration after the game. The team doing the Viking Clap with the fans. They were having a ball.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjIij4pmYcY

[jayakris]

Though its title is a bit exaggerated for effect, here is a very interesting article that came up in The Telegraph, UK, that talks about the serious upward momentum of Indian football, as part of an article on how football has grown in the US, India, and elsewhere like China, for which FIFA can take some credit. Football's new frontiers: why India and China could be the next global superpowers

[PKBasu]

Morocco's squad for the World Cup 2018 has 17 players born in Europe (out of a squad of 23). If we had the good sense to pick up ethnically-Indian talent from wherever it was available, we could quickly become a force to reckon with in Asian football. I hope better sense prevails on this soon.

[jayakris]

Morocco's squad for the World Cup 2018 has 17 players born in Europe (out of a squad of 23). If we had the good sense to pick up ethnically-Indian talent from wherever it was available, we could quickly become a force to reckon with in Asian football. I hope better sense prevails on this soon.

I am not convinced right now that there are so many players much better than the first eleven we have, from other places. There could be a couple out there for sure and it would make a difference, but probably not enough to move us from a top-120 quality team to a top-75 quality. But I agree that we should change rules and allow Indian origin foreigners in our team.

[jayakris]

A very good roundup on the player squad situation from Firstpost.com, by Anish Anand. Intercontinental Cup: India played well to clinch title, but coach Stephen Constantine still has problems to fix ...

Really, there is only one big problem in the starting 11 right now, which is Narzary who is just dumb very often and makes mistakes, though he runs around a lot and has skills to defend (more like disrupt). No wonder that Constantine has been getting Ashique Kaurniyan ready though he is very young and raw. He does look promising. I thought not having Eugenesen would be a problem in the midfield but the real young guy Anirudh Thapa looks like a real find. Yes, if either of Chhetri or Jejje is missing, there is a big drop-off. I don't think Balwant is the answer either. The article is right that our bench strength is not much. It is getting better though.

[prasen9]

Morocco's squad for the World Cup 2018 has 17 players born in Europe (out of a squad of 23). If we had the good sense to pick up ethnically-Indian talent from wherever it was available, we could quickly become a force to reckon with in Asian football. I hope better sense prevails on this soon.

Amen. If India allowed (non-passport holder) NRIs to participate in sports, that would be great. I know many here born of Indian immigrants, who think of themselves as Indians. If the fear is that the foreign-born will usurp things from Indians living in India, then may be have a quota to allow a mix of both. Or allow NRIs to participate if no Indian passport-holder has met the qualifying standards at no cost to the government. Or something a bit loose instead of a blanket ban. [For full disclosure, of course, I have a vested in this ]

[jayakris]

How does the NZ loss hurt wrt points? Overall, for the tournament, we gain or lose points/expected-ranking, Jay?

Not a big deal. Only a difference of about 3 spots or so. We should drop by 3 or 4 spots now, but could have stayed right around where it is now with a win against NZL also. By my calculations, we will drop a bit more by September, but should be still above #105... We will hopefully take some more "next steps" in 8 months by getting out of our pool at the Asian championships to the final 16. If we can get a couple of wins there, it would really help the rankings.

Actually, things just changed. FIFA announced yesterday that they are changing the ranking system. And they are going to ELO!!!!

Revision of the FIFA / Coca-Cola World Ranking (From FIFA)

That is the only thing that FIFA has released on it, but apparently, they are changing to ELO from right after the world Cup. So, from the July 19th ranking onward, we will be working with that FIFA version of ELO with the points set like in that document.

The key thing about which I am not clear, which the stupid FIFA document does not mention, is the points they will use to start the ELO ratings. Reading between the lines that this system "allows for a smooth transition from the current ranking formula to the new one without displacement of teams in the existing ranking table, " I assume that they will just prime the ELO with the current points. If so, we managed to game the FIFA system the best way (like no other team has) and only need to prove our place up there near the top-100 in our future games.

Hopefully we don't have to worry anymore about the number of friendlies we play etc, and can schedule better teams without worrying. That is the only way we will improve from here on out.