Football: Indian National Team news ...

[jayakris]

Just came across probably one of the most informative interviews concerning the actual behind-the-scenes ongoings and workings on Indian Football from a data analyst perspective. This interview with Joy Gabriel, Head of Analysis of the Indian Men National Team and FC Goa, touches on so many different things, from where we stand in certain metrics , what our Asian Cup opponents brings to the table, tactics, how the analyst teams gathers information, to the impact of the Indian Arrows team and the U17 world cup India had on our current national team and many more aspects.

"Numbers behind Indian football team success with Joy Gabriel": https://www.youtube.com/live/J20bZRFq8Q ... Xi3-gMDWHh

Thank you for posting that. Wow, tremendous stuff. I only watched 30 minutes of it (need to get back to work; but will watch the rest of the 85 minute long interview), but there is a treasure trove of items and details already. Great to see this kind of attention to details from the Indian team management. Slowly and steadily India is turning the corner these days.

[sameerph]

There is some movement from AIFF about trying to get PIO's in the team-

AIFF to approach 24 Indian origin players for India selection: Kalyan Chaubey

[il_fenomeno]

I would love to see PIOs in the national team but without allowing OCI Cardholders to represent India, I highly doubt that anyone will give up his current passport,since that would create further problems in regards to playing football in the UK. There was an article about this two months ago in the guardian:


https://www.theguardian.com/football/20 ... rn-players

[jayakris]

World Cup qualifiers (Round 2)

India - Afghanistan 0-0

At least we did not lose the match today... The home match against Afghanistan is next Tuesday (Mar 26) at Guawahati

We are second in our pool with 4 pts behind Qatar (to whom we lost 0-3) with 9 pts, and ahead of Kuwait (whom we beat 1-0) with 3 pts... Afhanistan picked up a point against us.

[Omkara]

Horrible performance.

[Rajiv]

Finally the Coach says Enough is Enough and puts his job on line.

https://indianexpress.com/article/sport ... n-9233328/

[Rajiv]

Finally the Coach says Enough is Enough and puts his job on line.

https://indianexpress.com/article/sport ... n-9233328/

And the Key Point from the article

‘In my four years there were three long camps that we had.’) and that the country’s inability to stop their goal drought was a problem before he arrived and would remain after he would leave (‘It’s because foreigners are playing in the important positions in ISL.’).

[prasen9]

We need to remove the number of foreigner quota and instead have a strict quota that no team can play a foreigner in the striker position. Teams will game this but the AIFF can decide if a player is playing as a striker or not. Or the other way would be to institute a quota that every team must play one Indian striker in the playing XI.

[jayakris]

Sunil Chhetri with a PK goal i the 38th minute... India leads Afghanistan 1-0... Now half time. 1-0

Chhetri's 150th match, and his 94th goal (I believe). He had not scored in a few matches. He has scored in his 25th, 50th, 75th, 100th, 125th, and 150th matches, as per the article above. That is a weird stat!! Wonder who else out there must have done that. Not too many, for sure.

[jayakris]

Still 1-0 in the 64th minute...

[Omkara]

Very poor quality football. Our fitness levels have improved but skill wise very average. Team work lacking. Can't even bear Afganistan convincingly

[srini]

It’s 1-1 yikes.

[jayakris]

AFG scores in the 88th minute. PK... 1-2. We have a flair for screwing up in every damn important match.

[srini]

Team has ensured Stimac will go I guess

[il_fenomeno]

And this Afghanistan team had 7 players missing apparently...

If I have done the math correctly in my head we have still a decent chance where we can advance to the next round:

Assuming Qatar beats Kuwait tonight and wins the other matches against us and Afghanistan as expected and Kuwait wins their match against Afghanistan, then we would need to beat Kuwait at home to advance to the 3rd round (would be also the case if we would have drawn today). But after losing tonight against Afghanistan, it's not likely that we can beat Kuwait again. The last time against Kuwait we just overachieved somehow.

End table would be in this scenario:

Qatar 18 points

India 7 points

Kuwait 6 points

Afghanistan 4 point

With a win against Afghanistan a draw would have been sufficient against Kuwait at home to advance in the above scenario.