The Indian national team head coach Igor Stimac has announced a 25-member squad that will travel to Bahrain to pay a couple of friendlies after the completion of the Indian Super League. The Blue Tigers will face hosts, Bahrain and Belarus in two friendly encounters as preparation for the upcoming AFC Asian Cup qualifiers.
The Indian football team will face Belarus on 23rd march whereas they will take on Bahrain on 26th March.
Earlier Stimac selected a huge pool of 38 probable players to the national camp and out of which he selected the cream of the crop on current form. he has picked seven players who received their maiden national team callup which includes the likes of Anwar Ali, Danish Farooq, VP Suhair, Golden Glove winner Prabhsukhan Singh Gill, Emerging Player of the year, Naorem Roshan Singh, finalists Ruivah Hormipam and Aniket Jadhav. Stimac has selected the players who have mostly impressed in the recently concluded Indian Super League season where several Indian players took the centre stage and led their teams on either front.
India are drawn in Group D for the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers along with Afghanistan, Cambodia and Hong Kong and are expected to ease their way past them given they are a higher-ranked team. However, Stimac feels that everything will be judged on the pitch giving not much heed to the rankings. Therefore he believes that playing against higher ranked teams like Bahrain and Belarus will test them. Both the teams have different strengths and it will help him assess the players when they are up against top quality oppositions.
“We are playing Bahrain and Belarus, and they are better-ranked sides than us,” Stimac had said earlier. “But whatever the rankings are, you need to do it on the pitch. Bahrain will show us where we stand. We will give chances to some young players who have played well in the ISL this season to see how much we can use them for the qualifiers in June.”
The Blue Tigers are playing these friendly matches in preparation for the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers’ final round. The qualifiers will be held in Kolkata from June 8 onwards and all eyes will be on Stimac and the Blue Tigers.
Goalkeepers: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Amrinder Singh, Prabhsukhan Gill.
Defenders: Pritam Kotal, Seriton Fernandes, Rahul Bheke, Hormipam Ruivah, Sandesh Jhingan, Anwar Ali, Chinglensana Singh, Subhasish Bose, Akash Mishra, Roshan Singh.
Midfielders: Bipin Singh, Anirudh Thapa, Pronay Halder, Jeakson Singh, Brandon Fernandes, VP Suhair, Danish Farooq, Yasir Mohammad, Aniket Jadhav.
