Igor Stimac, the Indian national team coach is satisfied with the performance of all the 23 players in the squad on day one of the national camps. Yesterday evening, the team faced IFA XI in an exhibition match which was held at Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Krirangan Stadium( formerly known as the Salt Lake Stadium) in Kolkata. Akash Mehra scored the winner in that match.
Stimac has stated that he was really happy with matches like this and wouldn’t mind other matches like this and repeated that they may want a match like this, within this week.
He complemented Kolkata saying that when it was very difficult to find games during this pandemic, Kolkata became the best place to train and is a great city for football.
This game was a part of the West Bengal Government’s “Khela Hobe” Divas. This match was attended by West Bengal government ministers and national and state federation officials and administrators.
He was asked about centre back Sandesh Jhingan too, who has just been transferred to a top division Croatian club, HNK Sibenik and might be unavailable for the friendlies against Nepal in Kathmandu. Stimac answered that he may consider releasing Jhingan from the camp. He further replied about the Croatian League, which the manager will be familiar with, that 5 rounds of games are already over and it was important for the defender to be match fit to be in the starting XI and they helping him to get into form, as soon as possible.
About the games in Kathmandu, he says that it is very difficult to organise games during the pandemic, especially in India. They were supposed to play Libya and Jordan in Istanbul but wasn’t possible due to quarantine rules. The same with playing both Nepal and Malaysia in Nepal.
The SAFF Championship and the AFC U-23 qualifiers are also scheduled to be in October, apart from the AFC Asia Cup qualifiers.
