Yeah cant agree more with @Carbon_14 . Philosophy or whatever so be it. Winning mentality and consistency should be the key are the players giving their 100% in whatever the philosophy be is the key. If we underperform either the players has to change or we should start over.
Tough conditions await India in must-win game vs Afghanistan
Big picture
India need a win. It is as simple as that.
With just two points in three matches, any chances of challenging Oman for the second spot* hinge on positive results in Dushanbe and in Muscat on the 19th. India have been topsy-turvy all campaign long. A superb first half performance against Oman was thrown away in a hapless second half that saw the Omanis win 2-1 at the end. India then went to Doha and held the Asian champions to a superb 0-0, before putting in an absurdly mediocre performance against Bangladesh at home to scrape a 1-1 draw.
Ahead of the match, Igor Stimac talked up the opposition -- the fact that large numbers of their squad are based in Europe, how they are a tough, physical side -- but eight matches into his reign, Stimac knows only a win will do. For all the talk of philosophy, for the changes that have been brought into the squad and into how the team approaches matches, points need to start rolling in.
Afghanistan, meanwhile, have had an even wilder ride in the initial stages of this campaign - a 1-0 win against Bangladesh was sandwiched by two hammerings away from home, a 0-6 defeat against Qatar and a 0-3 against Oman.
They will certainly see this match as a winnable one, with Jamie Day's Bangladesh having shown how you can blunt the Indian attack by simply congesting midfield and cutting off passing lanes. They may be ranked 43 places below India's 106 in the FIFA rankings but as India themselves have shown against Qatar (55th) and Bangladesh (184th), these numbers mean nothing if they can't be backed up on the field.
In unrelated news, India's U19 side lost 3-0 to Afghanistan's U-19 team on Sunday (Nov' 10) in Saudi Arabia to end their AFC U19 Championship campaign.
(*A reminder, only the top two teams advance to the next round of 2022 World Cup qualifiers and get automatic entry to the 2023 Asian Cup. After three games, Qatar top the group with 10 points, followed by Oman on seven. Afghanistan are on three, India have two, and Bangladesh have one)
The concerns
Conditions: With temperatures expected to hover around 10-13 degrees C, Dushanbe will not have the kind of climate the Indian squad is used to. They will also be playing the match on artificial turf -- and anyone who has made the transition from grass to astro knows it can be far from the easiest thing to adjust to.
For Afghanistan, Dushanbe has proved to be a welcome home-away-from-home, as their coach Anoush Dastagiv puts it -- "Playing in Tajikistan has always given us much needed confidence. We have beaten Cambodia, Bangladesh here and settled with a draw against Tajikistan, Jordan. Here, people speak our language. We feel at home. Whenever we play in front of Afghani crowd, we never fail to get positive results. We hope we can get something closer to that tomorrow as well."
Central defence: The perennial problem area just got worse. Sandesh Jhingan is out long-term. Anas Edathodika has had to return home due a family emergency. Adil Khan is a big doubt after picking up a hamstring injury in league action last week. If Adil doesn't make the cut, the options for Stimac include youngsters Sarthak Golui and Narender Gahlot, right-back-who-can-play-centre Rahul Bheke and left-back-who-can-play-centre Subashish Bose. Playing Bheke and one of Golui or Gahlot would seem to be an obvious choice for Stimac, but a rather out-of-form Pritam Kotal would then have to step up as right back.
There are no perfect solutions here, and Afghanistan may find cheer with their direct, physical, approach against any patchwork permutation Stimac puts out.
Chance creation: India have scored just three goals from open play in eight matches under Stimac. That is simply not good enough.
Key players
Brandon Fernandes: When Fernandes is on the field, India often look a better side. The control he brings to the game stops any possession-based tactics from becoming penetration-less and joyless passages of moving the ball side-to-side. His range of passing and quality of set-piece delivery are also of the utmost importance to a side who simply don't create enough from other areas.
Farshad Noor: Afghanistan's captain, and lone goal scorer of this campaign, the PSV Eindhoven academy graduate is the one through whom their football flows. The 25-year-old currently plays for Nea Salamis in the Cypriot league
@ beautifulgame.. One correction brother.. Top two from each group will not qualify for next round of Fifa qualifiers.. Only 4 or 5 best second placed teams will qualify.. mostly it will be 5 bcoz Qatar obviously will top our group.. As Qatar is hosting the World cup, even if Qatar finishes as top 4 2nd placed team, 5th best will get an chance in third round...
Top 2 from each group will be automatic qualifiers only for Asia cup..
@Nagendra minor correction again, only those teams who will qualify for next round will be also automatically qualify for Asian cup 2023, remaining second placed teams in groups will qualify for 3rd of Asian cup qualifiers.
No one expected results from day one. And all this talk of let the team learn and improve gradually falls flat since the same team with many of the same players played well consistently for tge past 2 odd years and got exceptional results. But now under the new coach they have gone back to Koeverman's era where we tried to play like Barcelona but ended up like stoke city and lost like....i don't know, any 4th tier english team!! This time although we have played better passing game than compared to koeverman days but we have not improved much in attacking play and have regressed in our defence. These so called youngsters already faced the pain of losing international matches in Stimac's first 10 matches and should have toughened up by now. And its not like we are expecting India to beat australia or japan type teams. But we should be able to beat Oman who despite fifa rankings is closer to our level and we should definitely be beating sides like Bangladesh who are much worse than us! Thats not unrealistic expectations on my view!
@chelseaindia most exceptional result we got since 2015 is the Qatar draw, we are the only Asian team to get points from them in 2019. apart from Thailand win we didn't get any exceptional results in Constantine era, China and Oman draws were good results but not exceptional.
the fact remains at the end of the day is we got cocky against BD after Qatar result and then it backfired because our team got rattled after BD got the lead in 1st half.
Tough conditions. What a pathetic excuse !! since when 10 to 13 deg C becomes tough condition ? Forget Dushanbe, one cannot even survive in North India during winter on this temp.
In Dec / Jan when I used to go to school, temp used to be less then this in the morning. Never heard anyone complaining. And this is tough for these professional players.. In European countries, entire league is played in such temp or below that.
Comments
Tough conditions await India in must-win game vs Afghanistan
Big picture
India need a win. It is as simple as that.
With just two points in three matches, any chances of challenging Oman for the second spot* hinge on positive results in Dushanbe and in Muscat on the 19th. India have been topsy-turvy all campaign long. A superb first half performance against Oman was thrown away in a hapless second half that saw the Omanis win 2-1 at the end. India then went to Doha and held the Asian champions to a superb 0-0, before putting in an absurdly mediocre performance against Bangladesh at home to scrape a 1-1 draw.
Ahead of the match, Igor Stimac talked up the opposition -- the fact that large numbers of their squad are based in Europe, how they are a tough, physical side -- but eight matches into his reign, Stimac knows only a win will do. For all the talk of philosophy, for the changes that have been brought into the squad and into how the team approaches matches, points need to start rolling in.
Afghanistan, meanwhile, have had an even wilder ride in the initial stages of this campaign - a 1-0 win against Bangladesh was sandwiched by two hammerings away from home, a 0-6 defeat against Qatar and a 0-3 against Oman.
They will certainly see this match as a winnable one, with Jamie Day's Bangladesh having shown how you can blunt the Indian attack by simply congesting midfield and cutting off passing lanes. They may be ranked 43 places below India's 106 in the FIFA rankings but as India themselves have shown against Qatar (55th) and Bangladesh (184th), these numbers mean nothing if they can't be backed up on the field.
In unrelated news, India's U19 side lost 3-0 to Afghanistan's U-19 team on Sunday (Nov' 10) in Saudi Arabia to end their AFC U19 Championship campaign.
(*A reminder, only the top two teams advance to the next round of 2022 World Cup qualifiers and get automatic entry to the 2023 Asian Cup. After three games, Qatar top the group with 10 points, followed by Oman on seven. Afghanistan are on three, India have two, and Bangladesh have one)
The concerns
Conditions: With temperatures expected to hover around 10-13 degrees C, Dushanbe will not have the kind of climate the Indian squad is used to. They will also be playing the match on artificial turf -- and anyone who has made the transition from grass to astro knows it can be far from the easiest thing to adjust to.
For Afghanistan, Dushanbe has proved to be a welcome home-away-from-home, as their coach Anoush Dastagiv puts it -- "Playing in Tajikistan has always given us much needed confidence. We have beaten Cambodia, Bangladesh here and settled with a draw against Tajikistan, Jordan. Here, people speak our language. We feel at home. Whenever we play in front of Afghani crowd, we never fail to get positive results. We hope we can get something closer to that tomorrow as well."
Central defence: The perennial problem area just got worse. Sandesh Jhingan is out long-term. Anas Edathodika has had to return home due a family emergency. Adil Khan is a big doubt after picking up a hamstring injury in league action last week. If Adil doesn't make the cut, the options for Stimac include youngsters Sarthak Golui and Narender Gahlot, right-back-who-can-play-centre Rahul Bheke and left-back-who-can-play-centre Subashish Bose. Playing Bheke and one of Golui or Gahlot would seem to be an obvious choice for Stimac, but a rather out-of-form Pritam Kotal would then have to step up as right back.
There are no perfect solutions here, and Afghanistan may find cheer with their direct, physical, approach against any patchwork permutation Stimac puts out.
Chance creation: India have scored just three goals from open play in eight matches under Stimac. That is simply not good enough.
Key players
Brandon Fernandes: When Fernandes is on the field, India often look a better side. The control he brings to the game stops any possession-based tactics from becoming penetration-less and joyless passages of moving the ball side-to-side. His range of passing and quality of set-piece delivery are also of the utmost importance to a side who simply don't create enough from other areas.
Farshad Noor: Afghanistan's captain, and lone goal scorer of this campaign, the PSV Eindhoven academy graduate is the one through whom their football flows. The 25-year-old currently plays for Nea Salamis in the Cypriot league
https://www.espn.in/football/preview?gameId=553195
One correction brother..
Top two from each group will not qualify for next round of Fifa qualifiers.. Only 4 or 5 best second placed teams will qualify.. mostly it will be 5 bcoz Qatar obviously will top our group.. As Qatar is hosting the World cup, even if Qatar finishes as top 4 2nd placed team, 5th best will get an chance in third round...
Top 2 from each group will be automatic qualifiers only for Asia cup..
These so called youngsters already faced the pain of losing international matches in Stimac's first 10 matches and should have toughened up by now. And its not like we are expecting India to beat australia or japan type teams. But we should be able to beat Oman who despite fifa rankings is closer to our level and we should definitely be beating sides like Bangladesh who are much worse than us! Thats not unrealistic expectations on my view!