Extremely difficult group for India. India will require all the luck to progress to next round. Having said that, apart from loosing against Iran, India hasn't lost to any Asian counterparts . Yes they played less, still I think we are going to play good
UAE recently played two matches with northkorea
uae 1- northkorea 1(draw)
uae 2-northkorea 2(draw)
northkorea beats vietnam by 4-1 recently ,
so match vs UAE will be not easy for india,hope india will be surprise package for the opponents.
the major problem with indian team is defence,so how nicolai handle this one will be the key of sucess for india.
North Korea may have rotated the squad during the friendlies in Malaysia. They are a strong team. Vietnam did have an impressive run in AFF u16 championship loosing out to Australia on penalties.
Most of the goals conceded from the recently concluded foreign tours were from counter attacks. Also one of our key defender is injured and undergoing treatment. So it will be interesting how our backline holds up against the faster afro-arab boys of Saudi and UAE.
Differences will be less when compared to Senior team... There will not be clear-cut favorites in U-16 Championship... Also We need NOT worry about Saudi, Iran & UAE.... To be frank, we should feel lucky to be in Group A... These teams are not strong in U 16 level... Please check stats... It is always better to face teams like Saudi, Iran & UAE instead of N.Korea,Japan,Iraq... Even teams like Vietnam & Thailand are unpredictable...
It's hard for kids to maintain consistency... On their day, they can win with huge margin (3-1 or 4-1) and on a bad day, they can lose with 1-0, 2-1 or in penalty shootout... Just one bad day, any good team can be out of tournament... Hope everyone remember Uzbek trump in 2012 U-16 Asian Championship... They are almost out of tournament in first round itself and India saved Uzbek fate... China conceded penalty in added time to India in last group match and they are out of tournament.. Not only this, even against Syria , China conceded goal in added time... China bad luck is Uzbek luck... Basically in football anything can happen, not all times, strong team will win and in U-16 level, it is more unpredictable..
And we cannot always consider results in friendlies... NT will try different set of players and/or combinations in friendlies.. Also we cannot completely rely on AFC qualifiers results as well... Teams might have upgraded (stronger) by adding new faces... Also teams might have prepared well after qualifiers..
If we are good in our group, we can win at-least 1 match. 4 points may enough for us to finish in top 2... And in knock-out stage, we never know anything can happen.. One good day, we can win with the margin of 1-0 or 2-1 or via penalty shoot-out in knock stage... On top it, we do have home advantage and we can play without pressure as this team already qualified for U-17 World Cup as a Host... And other teams like Japan/Australia should fear to play us..
Last but not least, kindly be optimistic, if someone from our U-16 NT team reads IFN comments, they will not feel positive... We always do this, most of the times, we go by names and feel we are inferior to opponents...
If we strong enough mentally & feel positive always, we can win matches... Once we are in ground, it's 11 vs 11..
Hope it makes sense. I do not want to name anyone . But it's heartening to see pessimistic comments.. Sorry if I'm rude here... Please feel free to dislike my comment if it doesn't makes sense...
Comments
Most of the goals conceded from the recently concluded foreign tours were from counter attacks. Also one of our key defender is injured and undergoing treatment. So it will be interesting how our backline holds up against the faster afro-arab boys of Saudi and UAE.
Differences will be less when compared to Senior team... There will not be clear-cut favorites in U-16 Championship...
Also We need NOT worry about Saudi, Iran & UAE.... To be frank, we should feel lucky to be in Group A... These teams are not strong in U 16 level... Please check stats... It is always better to face teams like Saudi, Iran & UAE instead of N.Korea,Japan,Iraq... Even teams like Vietnam & Thailand are unpredictable...
It's hard for kids to maintain consistency... On their day, they can win with huge margin (3-1 or 4-1) and on a bad day, they can lose with 1-0, 2-1 or in penalty shootout... Just one bad day, any good team can be out of tournament... Hope everyone remember Uzbek trump in 2012 U-16 Asian Championship... They are almost out of tournament in first round itself and India saved Uzbek fate... China conceded penalty in added time to India in last group match and they are out of tournament.. Not only this, even against Syria , China conceded goal in added time... China bad luck is Uzbek luck... Basically in football anything can happen, not all times, strong team will win and in U-16 level, it is more unpredictable..
And we cannot always consider results in friendlies... NT will try different set of players and/or combinations in friendlies.. Also we cannot completely rely on AFC qualifiers results as well... Teams might have upgraded (stronger) by adding new faces... Also teams might have prepared well after qualifiers..
If we are good in our group, we can win at-least 1 match. 4 points may enough for us to finish in top 2... And in knock-out stage, we never know anything can happen.. One good day, we can win with the margin of 1-0 or 2-1 or via penalty shoot-out in knock stage... On top it, we do have home advantage and we can play without pressure as this team already qualified for U-17 World Cup as a Host... And other teams like Japan/Australia should fear to play us..
Last but not least, kindly be optimistic, if someone from our U-16 NT team reads IFN comments, they will not feel positive... We always do this, most of the times, we go by names and feel we are inferior to opponents...
If we strong enough mentally & feel positive always, we can win matches... Once we are in ground, it's 11 vs 11..
Hope it makes sense. I do not want to name anyone . But it's heartening to see pessimistic comments.. Sorry if I'm rude here... Please feel free to dislike my comment if it doesn't makes sense...