The Sports-India Community

Just continuing on the topic of Odisha Chief Ministers and their contribution to sport one should also remember Harekirshna Mahtab. He was the one who got the Barabati Stadium built. It was one of the earliest examples of crowd funding in India. He conducted a raffle to raise money. Today the stadium hosts both cricket and football matches.

Atithee wrote: ↑Mon Jan 16, 2023 6:01 am ^^For a moment I was confused who is this Naveen Babu. Then I realized, it is a term of endearment. Thank you Naveen Babu ji. His father was Biju, right?

Rajit wrote babu with small letters. Capital vs small makes a big difference.

Ok, now maybe Jay or some other mod will lift these and move it to some development thread?

Hardik in the meantime is out of the World Cup. Big blow for India.

Trying to analyze who our QF opponents will be:
If we finish Wales match with higher GD than England and top the group D then Direct QF :
B2 (Germany or Belgium) Vs A3 (France?)

Cross Over: ,I am only assuming 2nd place((D2) at worst in group as we already defeated Spain
then we play cross over with C3 (Malaysia or NZ) and play QF with B1 (Germany or Belgium)

So its highly likely we will play with Germany or Belgium in QF if we make it to QF that is.
All top teams have drawn so far in this world cup..Arg-Aus (3-3) and Belg-Ger (2-2)
Germany seem to have relatively improved as it has drawn with Belgium. The way i see it,the top-5 seem to be Belgium, Australia, Germany, Argentina and Netherlands. We are probably 6-7 with England being at same level. Team needs to raise the game several notches to have any chances of cup!

Fiercely contested cup between top 7 teams and there seems to be lot of skill gap between any top-7 and 8 to 16 level teams.

Unread post by rajitghosh » Mon Jan 16, 2023 12:52 pm

Hardik in the meantime is out of the World Cup. Big blow for India.

That's terrible news

Germany seem to have relatively improved as it has drawn with Belgium. The way i see it,the top-5 seem to be Belgium, Australia, Germany, Argentina and Netherlands. We are probably 6-7 with England being at same level. Team needs to raise the game several notches to have any chances of cup!

Spot on. I think QF is our limit

Where is PKB? We will win this one, man!

I think we will beat Germany, so we should make SFs. After that, we have to hope that our home condition advantage helps us out.

Spain-Eng not looking good so far with Spain trailing 0-2 by Q2. 2 more goals by English and we may well end up playing cross over match which is nothing but an elimination starting 1 round earlier than QF! 0-4 Fulltime. So a 7 goal difference needed with Wales. Let's forget that and start prepping ourselves for Cross over match with NZ. No matter what our position is, Spain simply doesn't deserve to be qualified for playing in this worldcup. If bug nation had qualified they would have been playing for pride, Spain qualified with a meh team.

Looks like we have put the best foot forward, 0-0 by the end of Q1. On a side note, English seem to have figured a new way to conquer...divide themselves into England and Wales and conquer! They realized a full sized Welsh team in same group is better than having GB team consisting of 1-2 welsh players.

The less said the better about this match with Wales but for the record score line is 4-2 and we play NZ in Cross over match. Not expecting any great things from this team...just hoping we can move in to QF. Anything more is a bonus.

Yes, does not look like a great result today. Just about scraped thru. I think one of the major reasons for slightly below par performance so far is bad form shown by captain Harmanpreet. He had not scored a single goal in 3 matches before he scored one today in dying moments on PC when their goalie was out.

If he does not return to his top form and if Hardik does not come back, we may struggle against NZ in crossover match and certainly in QF.

Hardik is out of World cup.....

The Indian team isn’t playing well given that they are at home. Losing their best player isn’t going to help…

We lead 2-1 at half time against NZ.

Pathetic performance by India