This was the last age-group NT tournament for players like Dheeraj, Nawas, Suresh, Rahul, Rahim (represented India at U16/17, U19 & U23 level), Lalengmawia, Aniket, Komal (represented at U16/17 & U23 level).
We have been following these names for like 4-6 years now.
September 2022 Asian Games will be there. If Reliance and Batra allow, Under 23 team along with 3 senior players can play. Only Tangri, Ashish, Rebello and Bryce will be 23. 3 out of these 4 can play as senior and Rest of the squad can play.
This group played well collectively, but I was surprised in all 3 matches they were physically weaker. Very few times they managed to win 1-1 duels due to this. This didn't cost them much in age group, but in senior team it will for most of them. Also strange we always play 2 wingers, and probably provide the least no of crosses to the cf s out of any nation. Note- Stimac has also totally stopped his experiments and isn't rotate players at all(that's what we wanted but this looks extreme again), moved back to defensive org with counter attacking strategy of Consti( probably this suits us more at this moment). He is clever this guy.
One more thing, skill of course matters. Buts its the mentality which makes all the difference. Look at uae who were down and out with first game loss, yet its them who progressed. Its the winning mentality being heavy weights in this group. If we do not inculcate this, we will always struggle. People are just happy with this teams performance(maybe yes considering they didn't practise much). But I am disappointed because I have been following these players for 5-6 years and I know they had potential to qualify and play much better, they are also capable of good attacking against very strong teams, remember they played world cup(yes because we organised but its expected due to that experience we are better with thia group.). Yet we are pulling down our expectations to suit ourselves. Remember this same team once defeated Argentina( yes maybe their 3-4 team at that age group) but still it did. I was also hurt when coach just said- if we qualify for asia cup then all of asia will be surprised. Why? This just belittled FIFA as well, since while providing world cup to various organisers, development of talent is also one of their prime goals. This same team also played 2016 u16 asia cup, and we managed to score a lot of goals, yes we didn't manage to qualify 2017 world cup on merit, but go through the matches and you will see how we played.
Comments
We have been following these names for like 4-6 years now.
If Reliance and Batra allow, Under 23 team along with 3 senior players can play.
Only Tangri, Ashish, Rebello and Bryce will be 23. 3 out of these 4 can play as senior and Rest of the squad can play.
Note- Stimac has also totally stopped his experiments and isn't rotate players at all(that's what we wanted but this looks extreme again), moved back to defensive org with counter attacking strategy of Consti( probably this suits us more at this moment). He is clever this guy.