For increasing the popularity of the sport, Asian Games was the best opportunity. Look at all the games which we don't even follow regularly, we watch during Olympics/Asian Games. AIFF & FSDL made sure we messed up that chance.
A full strength India team could have reached far into the knockouts. Yeah, not many opposition teams are there, but people who don't follow football doesn't know that. This is the last Asian Games for Sunil Chhetri (maybe for Indian football team also in near future).
India no where to be seen , 5-1 now ..Loss expected but not with this margin
Expected. What else do you think? Against a heavy weight asian team, without any practise , just assembled team with no bench, somehow assembled atblast minute. This happens in our locality games not at such big stage. Foolish aiff. I strongly believe aiff thought that all clubs will cause no issues and hence they didn't even start dialogues before. If they had, they would have known which players are available a long time ago. They cannot dump this failure
Very poor planning from AIFF. Team played with lot of players out of position, unfamiliar with each other and lastly with very little recovery after travel
Next two matches would be good but chance missed to get a result against a pretty average Chinese team who were just physically strong and tactically prepared
🚨 | Defender Sana Singh has reached Hangzhou, but Gurkirat Singh missed his connection flight from Hong Kong on Wednesday morning making it even more difficult for India with four players down with cramps after Tuesday’s game against China. [@RevSportz]
🚨 | Mohun Bagan Super Giant’s Deepak Tangri is expected not to travel to China. Jeakson Singh was supposed to take Tangri’s place but NT camp is yet to know if Kerala Blasters FC will allow him to travel. That means India could have 21 instead of 22 players available. [@DhimanHT, HT]
🚨 | Jeakson Singh will stay with Kerala Blasters FC for the Indian Super League matches. [@MarcusMergulhao]
Igor Štimac 🗣️ : "We are in a big problem with three players (Rathi, Lalchungnunga and Bryce Miranda) down with cramps and there could be a big risk of injury if they play on Thursday. And it is possible that three players will reach hours before the game on Thursday." [via HT]
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A full strength India team could have reached far into the knockouts. Yeah, not many opposition teams are there, but people who don't follow football doesn't know that. This is the last Asian Games for Sunil Chhetri (maybe for Indian football team also in near future).
Next two matches would be good but chance missed to get a result against a pretty average Chinese team who were just physically strong and tactically prepared