Football: Indian National Team news ...

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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

Check out the video linked in this article - Indian football fans' heartwarming gesture a pleasant surprise for team Puerto Rico
The Andheri fans singing in unison, "Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico" as the visiting players leave the field! I guess Mumbai fans are 60 years behind the world in soccer, where you try to throw toilet paper rolls at the visiting team and pee at them from above the tunnel, as they leave!
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jayakris »

Yep. It seems AIFF is totally on top of the points/ranking matter that i discussed earlier. Secretary Kushal Das categorically says they have a deliberate plan to not do anything till February. The idea was indeed to get the ranking up (which is actually important to get a seeding in Asia and avoid having to play 2 high-ranked teams in our pool). They even deliberately made the Bhutan win a non-Fifa match. Hallelujah!!! This is all very nice to see.
In-form India won't play any internationals till Feb 2017
Of course, we have our utterly clueless "former coach/captain" types like Sukhwinder and Coutinho commenting on this like AIFF is the one making a mistake. I guess blaming the federation always works in the press who never do fact-checking anyway. If we can get some of these older guys who never accomplished anything to just go home, our sports would get much better!

But then again, I see this news too - Despite building team for future, coach Constantine could be replaced
The BS never ends. I guess letting a coach build a his team and try/cut players as needed, is just not what we do. That of course upsets the regionally-biased sports politicians who have their favorites. The "technical committee" needs to get involved. And no committee ever does anything right in India. Sad to see even guys like Bhaichung Bhutia being part of this game. But then again, our sportsmen only get progressively worse as politicians as time goes on, so who knows - maybe even Bhaichunj is going in that direction.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jaydeep »

Jay, our climb in FIFA ranking is started ... In newly updated FIFA ranking we are on 148th ranked (from 152nd) with 219 ranking points.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by sameerph »

And the climb continues. We are now ranked 137 which is our best ranking since 2010. Hope we keep going up now. There are some positive signs of late with our win against Puerto Rico and Bengaluru FC reaching AFC cup final.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by arjun2761 »

Yes, good to see the Bengaluru team do well in the AFC cup. Good soccer/national teams tend to be built from players who develop and do well in professional leagues (either at home or sometimes with the best players playing at the top leagues overseas).

Since our players are generally not likely to play in the top leagues overseas right now, improving the Indian leagues is how our ascent needs to start. Our league teams doing well is an indication that our leagues are getting better. In addition, our goalie who plays in Norway is world class, so perhaps the better players should look to play outside even in other Asian countries (such as UAE) where the standards are a little higher.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Prashant »

I am curious - is the Bengaluru FC roster completely domestic players, or do they have some imports on there?
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jaydeep »

Bengaluru fc also having foreign imports but they perfectly matching their requirements.

Bengaluru fc team
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Prashant »

I went through the website, and I see just one foreign player, a defender from England. So it is largely a domestic team (with a very large contingent from the northeast, in particular Mizoram).
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jaydeep »

Currently they r having four forign players in their complete squad.

DF - Juan Antonio González Fernández (ESP)
DF - John Johnson (ENG)
MF - Cameron Watson (AUS)
MF - Álvaro Rubio (ESP)
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jaydeep »

India climbed two places to finish 2016 at #135 in FIFA rankings.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by sameerph »

India is now ranked #129 which is our highest ranking since 2005. This is the related report -

India Rise to 129 in FIFA Rankings, Best Ever Position in a Decade
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Prashant »

I just hope we continue to be wise in scheduling. I don't really care about Asia Cup where we will get thrashed by stronger teams. Keep playing teams about 10 places ahead of us & trying to win/draw.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by jaydeep »

We received favorable draw and having a great chance of qualifying for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup ... India was seeded into the second pot for the draw, thanks to their latest FIFA ranking 129th.

India will start their campaign by playing Myanmar away on 28th March before hosting Kyrgyzstan on June 13th ... After that back to back matches against Macau on September 5th (away) and October 10th (home) ... Then we host Myanmar on November 14th before finishing their group matches away to Kyrgyzstan on March 27th, 2018.

At the 2019 AFC Asian Cup - Qualifying,

Group A
WR# 124 Kyrgyzstan, WR# 129 India, WR# 159 Myanmar and WR# 184 Macau
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by Prashant »

That is a good draw. Hopefully we can win both legs against Macau & Myanmar, and the home leg vs Kyrgyzstan.
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Re: Football: Indian National Team news ...

Post by arjun2761 »

India beat Cambodia 3-2 in a friendly in Cambodia. I guess any win for India is probably a decent win...
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