Football: Indian National Team news ...

[arjun2761]

This is OK as a strategy if indeed the underlying improvements in play are there or being planned for. Otherwise, this is like a tennis player playing low level events to maximize their points to get into tougher competition but generally struggling at the higher level once they get there....

[prasen9]

Whenever a ranking function changes behavior of people, whether it be FIFA rankings or ELO ratings, the ranking function is not optimally designed and should be tweaked. Having said that, in reality, it is possibly very difficult to create rankings that cannot be gamed. In the U.S., see the college rankings by U.S. News & World Ratings that are heavily gamed by some colleges. But, if there is a lot of gaming going on as in this case, maybe FIFA should look at improving it. Until then, however, I think teams will game it and so should India.

In a way, we could also look at this as not playing the meaningless friendlies so that we can go further and play the better teams in the knockout phase of the playoffs of the championship tournament.

[Sin Hombre]

@Jay, the easiest way to get some traction going in Indian football is by allowing PIOs to play; we can improve our team significantly by allowing the likes of Danny Baith to play for Indian colours.

[jayakris]

@Jay, the easiest way to get some traction going in Indian football is by allowing PIOs to play; we can improve our team significantly by allowing the likes of Danny Baith to play for Indian colours.

True, and Danny Batth REALLY wants to play for India, unlike say Michael Chopra who was a lot of talk and showed no real heart for India. But our passport rules are BS when it comes to allowing Indian origin players. I hope that somehow Danny Batth would end up coming, but it doesn't look good right now. But again, I think our defense may be okay, and can get better with just discipline (in which some of the foreign ISL coaches are probably already helping). The real problem is coming up with true talent at the striker position. We produce ONE good scorer every 8 or 10 years it seems. Like Vijayan, Bhutia, Chhettri. That is not enough. Jeje has become better now but we need somebody else, because Chhettri will be done in a couple of years.

[jayakris]

The new FIFA ranking came out and we have 316.06 points as expected, but the ranking is 2-3 spots below what I thought, at #107. Still at the Asia #12 spot, as a few teams below us in Asia also moved down. But there are 7 Asian teams in the 110-124 range, trying to move up, so we just need to stay tight and move up ourselves...

We will move back up soon again into top-100. Assuming that we will beat Macau at Bangalore on Oct 11th, we will move 5-6 spots up in the next rankings with 333.03 points. If we beat #152 Myanmar at home in November, we will move up to 343.28 in the Nov 23rd rankings, and then to 356.73 in the January rankings, all of which will have us right around 100. But we will then move up by April, though we play only Kyrgyz Rep on March 27, after the Myanmar match this November. Assuming that we will have the 2 home wins and a road loss to KGZ, we will be at 380.97 points for a ranking at around #95 in the April rankings. If we beat KGZ, we will be up at 424.80 points, which is all the way up at around #80. Let us hope for being around #95, as I am really doubtful if we will beat KGZ on the road. But this also means we MUST win the two winnable matches at home in October and November and cannot screw things up.

Anybody knows the exact date when they will seed 12 teams and make the 24-team draw for the Asian Cup (Jan 2019)? The qualifying gets done in March 2018, but I have not found the exact date when they will make draw. The date may be relevant.

[jayakris]

@Jay, the easiest way to get some traction going in Indian football is by allowing PIOs to play; we can improve our team significantly by allowing the likes of Danny Baith to play for Indian colours.

True, and Danny Batth REALLY wants to play for India, unlike say Michael Chopra who was a lot of talk and showed no real heart for India. But our passport rules are BS when it comes to allowing Indian origin players. I hope that somehow Danny Batth would end up coming, but it doesn't look good right now. But again, I think our defense may be okay, and can get better with just discipline (in which some of the foreign ISL coaches are probably already helping). The real problem is coming up with true talent at the striker position. We produce ONE good scorer every 8 or 10 years it seems. Like Vijayan, Bhutia, Chhettri. That is not enough. Jeje has become better now but we need somebody else, because Chhettri will be done in a couple of years.

We did find two players from abroad for the u17 world cup. Central defender Namit Deshpande from USA and a pretty tall goalkeeper Sunny Dhaliwal from Canada.

Abhishek Yadav was the key man who kept in touch with Namit's parents and made it happen - Here is the story ... Namit was actually born in Mumbai and had to only be convinced to go for the Indian passport over a US passport, I suppose.

Injeti Srinivas, the IAS man at the top of SAI helped Abhishek Yadav in the Canadian case, which required some quick work and approvals, as he did not hold an Indian passport, unlike Namit. Here is how that happened.

Nobody can say how good u17 players will later turn out to be, but it's worth a try.

[jayakris]

But we still haven't found a real replacement for Chhettri. We need somebody. Now. Like, yesterday!

Here is an article on three players - Manvir Singh from Punjab(?), Asrar Rehbar from Kashmir, and Lallianzuala Chhangte from Mizoram - Indian football after Sunil Chhetri - who will take up the goalscoring mantle for India

Hope one of them comes through in a year or two. Actually there are a couple of others in the ISL too, to watch out for. It seems like there is some awareness of upcoming players now, and that bit more of scouting is going on, compared to even 5 years ago. That is a good sign. The scouting is still in the 17-21 age range though; not in the 14-17 range where we have no real youth league at all to scout with. But at least some work is going on. ISL will help a bit more. We will unearth some guys soon for scoring... at least I hope so.

[Sin Hombre]

Hopefully the sports ministry is able to show more flexibility with Danny Baith's case as well.

[jayakris]

India has put in a bid for the u20 world cup in 2019 - ESPN story. I am surprised that it is done this late and they are announcing it only in early 2018. What? Anyway, our chances may not be great but it would be good if we get it.

[jaydeep]

India has secured direct qualification to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup to be held in UAE as a result of their 4-1 win over Macau in the qualifier ... The last time India reached the tournament through the direct qualification route was in 1984 ... After 1-all at halftime, an introduction of Balwant Singh in place of Jackichand Singh had an impact on the game ... As we created more chances and converted from them.

At the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, Bangaluru, India

Group A
India bt Macau 4-1 (1-1)
Goal Scored - Rowllin Borges (IND) 28', Sunil Chhetri (IND) 60)', Ho Man Fai (MAC) 70' OG, Jeje Lalpekhlua (IND) 90+2' and Nicholas Tarrao (MAC) 37'

[jayakris]

Argh, I forgot about that Macau match today! I guess I assumed that we would thump them anyway ... Good to see us win the first 4 matches in our pool. Myanmar at home and Kyrgiz Rep away remain. Though we have qualified, we don't ant to drop those matches, if we want to keep the ranking and be one of the seeded 12 teams at Dubai... Jay

[jayakris]

India is ranked #105 this month, up two spots from last month. FIFA says we have 327.61 points. I am pretty sure that FIFA has made a mistake in their rankings. It should be 340.36. Before you say that I must be out of my mind, FIFA has made mistakes in the rankings in the past (because of inputting some number wrongly etc). Just that I am not sure what mistake would have made this 12.75 point discrepancy. Weird. We should be ranked #103 and not #105.

FIFA shows the exact points as I have in my spreadsheet, for 2014, 2015, and 2016 but for the latest 12 month period, they show a lower number. They show the exact points as I have, for the latest win last week against Macau too (the stupid-ass FIFA site only shows the latest match's points; why, I don't know!). That is the only new piece of data that went into their rankings, and my spreadsheet perfectly matched with their numbers last month. So I'm not even sure where/how they could have made a mistake.

In fact I just did a little investigation and found that this page (of a FIFA ranking consultant) had predicted the 340 points that I was expecting, just 3 days ago fr the October rankings.

So, something is wrong. It does not matter much right now, but we are at the 14th spot in Asia. We should be moving up if we beat Myanmar next month and should be in the Asian top-12 by seeding time for the Asian Cup, sometime after next March, but things could get very tight if we lose to Kyrgiz Rep next March (or Myanmar, for that matter). I will be pretty mad if it is a FIFA mistake that screws us up. I will monitor this, because I suspect nobody else will, if we don't.

[jaydeep]

I will monitor this, because I suspect nobody else will, if we don't.

Nothing will be missed from your hawkeyes

[sameerph]

Can FIFA be contacted for pointing out their mistake ? or AIFF for taking it up with them ?

[prasen9]

That may be the best. Maybe Jay can write a letter and send it to several Indian newspapers?