you have to sacrifice a lot to get good thing. I support gurpreet's decision. even playing norway reserves regularly, and making to the bench every time is a good sign. He will only get better because he trains in a lot more advanced facility, under good coaching staff. learning matters for a GK at his age. and I don't blame him that much except 2nd goal in which he misjudged the flight.
Concentration! That is what cost us goals against Oman, and now 2 goals against Iran. 5 minutes into the game in both half, you have to concentrate. We didn't and that led to the two second half goals.
Gurpreet certainly is culpable for the 2nd goal, but you have to look at the left back, Narayan, who didn't pick up his man the whole game and that is what happened there too. He was busy looking at the linesman to see if there was going to be a flag for the ball going out instead of defending. He needs to up his game big time, and for me was the poorest Indian player out there today who started.
Pronay Halder was my man of the match. Outstanding performance, covering both full backs, using his body well to cover, and never backed out of a tussle with the likes of Dejagah the whole game, and came out on top, winning most of his individual battles, and he showed impressive anticipation, reading of the game and compusure. This guy needs to be a main stay in the team. People would have noticed Jhingan's bravery and brilliant one on one defending, but Halder gets the MoM from me. Arnab and Rowlin Borges did very well too and showed excellent anticipation and reading of the game, as did Robin and Kotal with their work rate. Chhetri remains our only player who is comfortable with the ball at his feet, and he got no support in attack from Jeje, who despite working hard, missed two of the best chances that were created. Jackichand offers nothing at this level, while Lobo probably showed that he is pretty decent on the ball when he came on.
Overall, individual mistakes proved costly. Gurpreet and Narayan for the 2nd goal and Narayan's week excuse for a clearance for the 3rd goal. When we play teams like this, you need an "out ball", usually some with pace out wide who can give the defenders a breather, or a top target man. I am happy with the majority of the players in the squad and couple of tweaks and regular international exposure will help, but SC certainly needs to work on using his players right and putting together an attacking strategy instead of just staying back and defending.
And finally, whoever gave Suman Chakraborty the job of commentating needs to be put in an asylum.
With that physique Romeo is not fit for intntl football.. Not even Jackichand.. They are I league level players.. As for Haokip I think he is even worse than Holi..btw Holi himself does not remember when he last scored a goal
I still remember almost 2 decades ago (vijayan and das munshi era) we lost only 1-3 to Iran @ kolkata in a 3 team group after they had thrashed Pakistan 7-0.....nothing has changed. How have we progessed?? Our league struggles to have 10 teams and Chima okerie could still be a top scorer in that league.
But we have ISL and now Kerala super league...damn it I forgot.
Just was going through qualifiers procedures and saw that we still have good chance to go to next round directly.
Below is the chances we have to move to next round
A total of 40 teams (teams ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) will be divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches.
The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up will advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification as well as qualify for the AFC Asian Cup finals.
Even if with luck if we finish second after winning remaining matches and oman and guam losing matches, we can get only 12 points which I doubt would be enough to go through as top 4 best placed runners up... so this is technically out of picture in best possible case scenario
The next 16 highest ranked teams (the remaining four group runners-up, the eight third-placed teams and the four best group fourth-placed teams) will advance directly to the third round of Asian Cup qualification.
TO be finished in this set, we need to finish at top3 or should have got maximum number of points against top3 teams which at present looks likely in the only fixture remaining with guam if we fail to finish in top3.
The remaining 12 teams enter the play-off round to contest the remaining eight spots in the third round of Asian Cup qualification.
This looks the most likely place for us at the end of round with current form sadly... if we end up in bottom 12 teams, we might have good chance of facing known foes like Maldives Bhutan Bangladesh etc... if we face one we might actually get through to final round of Asian cup qualifiers
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But we have ISL and now Kerala super league...damn it I forgot.
Just was going through qualifiers procedures and saw that we still have good chance to go to next round directly.
Below is the chances we have to move to next round
A total of 40 teams (teams ranked 1–34 and six first round winners) will be divided into eight groups of five teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches.
The eight group winners and the four best group runners-up will advance to the third round of FIFA World Cup qualification as well as qualify for the AFC Asian Cup finals.
Even if with luck if we finish second after winning remaining matches and oman and guam losing matches, we can get only 12 points which I doubt would be enough to go through as top 4 best placed runners up... so this is technically out of picture in best possible case scenario
The next 16 highest ranked teams (the remaining four group runners-up, the eight third-placed teams and the four best group fourth-placed teams) will advance directly to the third round of Asian Cup qualification.
TO be finished in this set, we need to finish at top3 or should have got maximum number of points against top3 teams which at present looks likely in the only fixture remaining with guam if we fail to finish in top3.
The remaining 12 teams enter the play-off round to contest the remaining eight spots in the third round of Asian Cup qualification.
This looks the most likely place for us at the end of round with current form sadly... if we end up in bottom 12 teams, we might have good chance of facing known foes like Maldives Bhutan Bangladesh etc... if we face one we might actually get through to final round of Asian cup qualifiers