Football: Indian National Team news ...

[prasen9]

If the points re-distribution after a match is reasonable, I would expect a normal distribution to emerge after sufficient number of matches. Any reason for it to be exponential?

[jayakris]

The SAFF Cup is underway in Bangladesh and India is there. We are fielding an extremely young team, our u23 side, the youngest in the field. Only 3-4 guys like Ashique Karuniyan and Subhashish Bose from our regular team (and maybe none of the regular starters) are there. We had a good start with a 2-0 win over Sri Lanka last night. It seems we totally dominated the game, and SL didn't have a chance. Ashique scored in the 36th minute and Lallianzuola Changte scored in the 47th minute. It seems Ashique was a terror throughout the match and Changte missed a couple of sitters. We could have won 4-0 or something!

We are in Group B with Sri Lanka and Maldives. Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Pakistan are Group A. We play Maldives on Sunday next. They are always a decent team, and we can't count on a win, as ours is a u23 side.

Constantine had taken this u23 group to Australia for a 17 day preparatory camp, and they played a few matches against their top clubs. The full regular team will next play against China in November, but for FIFA ranking purposes, these SAFF games count as regular friendlies even if it is our u23 team there.

[desidividend24]

india u19 lost 1-0 to slovenia
next they play France.

[kujo]

If the points re-distribution after a match is reasonable, I would expect a normal distribution to emerge after sufficient number of matches. Any reason for it to be exponential?

Normal distribution is normal and expected on these ELO points. But since the total number of teams (data points) is small (200) and there is precedent with prior FIFA ranking points being Exponential, I suspect it may not turn out to be Normal even after sufficient number of matches.

More like the rich get richer - by playing in high ELO value tournaments (world cup for example), while at the same time the poor (low ranked nations) get poorer by losing and giving away their ELO points to other teams ranked in the middle....
This is a may be scenario, we will see what happens...

[Omkara]

I don't understand. Today we have India vs France u 19 match and also we play Maldives in saff games where we have fielded u 23 team.

Is there so much depth in our team? If so, then amazing!

[jayakris]

Yes, we do indeed have that much of depth. I don't think any u19 player (save maybe one?) would be in our u23 team.

[jayakris]

And our u23 team beat Maldives 2-0 today in SAFF cup. Remember that we used to struggle and even lose to Maldives not so long ago.... Nikhil Pujari (36th min) and Manvir Singh (44th min) scored for us today. We are in the semis by topping our group, and will play Pakistan in the SF.

[arjun2761]

Our u-19 team lost to France 0-2. Considering that our u-19 team lost to Saudi Arabia 0-5 a couple of years ago, this is substantial improvement.

[jayakris]

India beat Pakistan 3-1 last night in the SAFF semifinals in Dhaka. I guess even our u23 team is pretty decent to handle the minnows around us. Manvir Singh scored twice (48m, 69m) and Sumeet Passi scored once (84m) before Pakistan put in a late goal (88m). It was scoreless at the half and people started getting worried though...

[sameerph]

We lost 1-2 to Maldives in the final.

Although it is only an under 23 team a loss to Maldives is not a good result considering how we have been doing in the recent past.

[jayakris]

Sorry, I forgot to put in a reminder on the historic India-China friendly in Suzhou near Shanghai today... First time in 21 years that we are playing China. That is a long time ago... I mean, Leander Paes was playing back in 1997 .... Oh, wait.. He is still playing tennis.

The match is under way.

41st minute -- 0-0 still...

It is 0-0 at the half time. India was under pressure early on and Gurpreet had to make some saves but China apparently cooled off in the last 15 minutes of the first half and we had a few runs into their side. Anyway, we are holding them so far.

[jayakris]

50th min ... 0-0
60th min ... Still goal-less. 0-0

Constantine substituted Narayan Das for Anas and Nikhil Poojari for Udanta. Unless the two guys are injured, those are problematic substitutions. (Correction: Anas replaces N.Das. That is not bad)... China is apparently threatening in the 70th minute. One shot on the upright and one on the cross bar. One header on the side net. Hmmm... Somehow it is still 0-0.

75th min ... Still 0-0

83rd min ... 0-0 ... Farukh Chaudhuri has come in for Jeje, who was not very effective today, it seems. We just had a corner and Jhingan's header went just above the goal.

[jayakris]

92nd minute ... Vinit Rai has come in for Pronay Halder and Rowlin for Anirugh Thapa. Makes sense to park the bus.

93rd minute ... Poojari diagonal and Farukh shot but their goalie saved it. Oooh... A chance there for us. We get a corner, but can't convert.

95th minute ... Phew... Gurpreet makes two saves on a last-gasp China counter attack.

And it is a 0-0 final. Pretty good, in my opinion, to go to China and get a tie!!!!

2.5 billion people can't find a single guy who can score a goal, I guess.

[jayakris]

Any of you ELO experts want to check what an away tie with #76 does? Minor uptick for us from #97, maybe?

[SaniaFan]

India competed well. We created chances and had shots at goal. We did play with lot of passion. Clearly China was the better side and perhaps unlucky too but we did compete well.