Football: Indian National Team news ...

[arjun2761]

India will need to at least draw Oman or Qatar in the reverse matchs against them, then beat Bangladesh and Afghanistan to make it in with 12 points.

The math does not add up. 1 draw and 2 wins gets to 10 points. Oman, the second team in our group already has 9 points, so 10 points will not get us to second place in our group. We essentially need to beat Oman and get 2 further wins to even be in the running for 2nd place in our group. Even with our win, Oman can get wins against BAN and AFG and get to 15 points. Our chances of advancing are minimal.

[jayakris]

Yes you're right. I miscalculated. Sometimes addition is too much math for me!

[jayakris]

India vs OIman is on in Muscat. Can't find any live stream, as usual. Why is it so hard to watch any Indian football outside India?

Anyway, 0-0 in the 22nd minute. Oman actually got a penalty kick early, but their guy kicked it to the crossbar!

30:00 -- Still 0-0

[rajitghosh]

Apparently they restricted the ticket sales to the public to ensure it doesn't become a home match for India

[jayakris]

Yes, they had 3000 seats for OMR 5 ($13) and 300 VIP seats at OMR 10 ($25) for Indians - with specific gates for entry etc. The rest of the seats are only for home guys and were free! I have never heard of ticket prices being set only for expat people at international games. So indecent!

Anyway, Oman goal in the 33rd minute. 0-1 we are behind. Muhsen Al Ghassani, who missed the penalty earlier, scored this time. Defensive breakdown that left Gurpreet with no chance, as per goal.com

Adil khan injured. Anas comes in on defense (Anas' mom passed away last week and he had to go back from Dushanbe before our AFG game. He flew back in for this game).

HALF-TIME 0-1 .... Generally, it is an even game, it seems. We are just not finishing, as usual. Have had a few chances, seemingly. (Meawhile, Qatar leading Afghanistan 1-0 in the 89th minute. And QAT wins. AFG has been better than expected, for sure)

[SaniaFan]

Indian defense is looking shaky to me. In fact it has been for all the matches after draw with Qatar. Jhingan's absence seems to be the beggest reason for this.
Also it seems the refereeing is not very good. The penalty was harsh and also the goal was from off side position. It seems to be biased towards the home side.

[jayakris]

Yes, Jhingan is being sorely missed. He will be out for an extended period with surgery etc, so we have to make do. Anas is good with Jhingan, but he is no superman. But our passing and attacking have really regressed under the "set-piece guru" Stimac, based on the bits and pieces I have seen of the last few matches. I wish Constantine hadn't left (or got nudged out).

61st minute - still 0-1 ... Same in the 85th min. We have wasted quite a few set pieces today.

6 minutes injury time starting. Need a miracle now.

And that's a final. India l. Oman, 0-1

[arjun2761]

Indian defense is looking shaky to me. In fact it has been for all the matches after draw with Qatar. Jhingan's absence seems to be the beggest reason for this.
Also it seems the refereeing is not very good. The penalty was harsh and also the goal was from off side position. It seems to be biased towards the home side.

Yes, the goal was pretty clearly from an offside position as most of the attacker's body was beyond the last defender. See 2:34-35 in the video below when the goal occurs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l01o8p6ywKQ

[Rajiv]

The Coach seems to be enjoying every second of hi stay in India, but sadly the same cannot be said about the results so far.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiat ... 2019-12-05

[jayakris]

Haven't had much news on football for a while, but Stimac has announced the practice squad for our World Cup qualifying league match against Qatar at Bhubaneswar on March 26th. I think there are two sets of practice squads announced for two practice periods this month, to handle the domestic league schedule issues. Jhingan and Jeje are apparently healthy now, and have been called back to the squads. No idea in what shape they both will be. Jeakson Singh (remember the youngster who scored our only goal in the FIFA u17 WC in 2017?) has been called into the practice squad too.

Meanwhile, AIFF announced yesterday that India will be playing an FIFA friendly away-match against Tajiskistan the week after the Qatar game, on March 31st.

[jayakris]

Here is Sportskeeda's top-10 Indians in the ISL 2019-20. So sad to see that we still don't have a goal-scorer forward in the top-10 to replace Chhetri.... Well, the #1 player in the top-10 is the evergreen Sunil Chhetri, still. But what do we do after he retires soon?

[jayakris]

Another update on our players in ISL. Not much emerged from ISL this season but many of the FIFA u17 WC guys are beginning to look good. Scorers, though? No idea.... Indian football team regulars struggle, U-17 World Cup stars show spark

[prasen9]

The same as what we did after Bhaichung Bhutia and Vijayan. Someone will emerge.

[jayakris]

The same as what we did after Bhaichung Bhutia and Vijayan. Someone will emerge.

Let's hope so. For now, we have to hope for Jeje to get back to some scoring efficiency for the immediate couple of years, if Chhetri retires soon.

[jayakris]

AIFF announced today that the next WC qualifier match (after the Bhubaneswar match on Mar 26th against Qatar) will be at the Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata - the return match against Afghanistan on June 9th.