AFC Challenge Cup 2014 and qualifiers

Shah476

They have some from palestine playing in jordan saudi m egypt while euro n south american based are off origin..which india dsnt allow dual to passport... but they have good local lads who have made it in jordan n other arab leagues..

Shah476

India has good league n salaries r inflated so some dnt wanna go abroad n try harder leagues.. its best league in saff n better thn some asean n arab leagues too..

Terp13

Good for Palestine. Maybe something for their fans to cheer for in those conditions.

Yea, that's true about the I-league as well. Besides, if we have so much money, why don't we get more top quality Asian players to play here. Like some good Asian players from ASEAN and Arab countries. We already got some good SAFF players playing here like Bilal Arezou and Sagar Thapa.

Arsenalkid700

OMG Grow up and do some actual research instead of being the super armchair fan who bases quality on two-three games.

The United States lost to Antigua in June. Is Antigua better than the United States? No not at all. Australia failed to defeat Oman while Lebanon could defeat Oman... is Lebanon better than Australia. No.

Look at Indian football and look at the players. In terms of the domestic game and the international game India is easily the best team in South Asia. The problem here was bad management and bad squad selection. If India had their best team out there with CK Vineeth, Lalkamal, Jeje, Arnab, Nabi etc then it would be a different story. Even Lalrindika and Sanju Pradhan were missed.

Think about it.

Guchimare

Although it's now obvious that India's chance drastically fell, still i don't see it impossible. Let's talk about Group E. 

First of all, Cambodia and Brunei are not Guam or NMI. When well prepared, they pull off some respectable fight. Cambodia actually drew with Philippines in a friendly last September, and they recently defeated Malaysia U-23 by 3-1 which is not a negligible result because M'sia U-23 is usually considered as the best team of the age in South East Asia and they drew with Myanmar and Laos senior sides few weeks ago. Brunei is a less solid team but they also have improved a lot and can bring more than FIFA ranking suggests. Most of their NT players are from one club, Brunei DPMM FC in Singapore S-League, therefore their team chemistry is pretty good. They pulled off 3-2 win against Cambodia and a close 0-1 fight against Myanmar during ASEAN Championship qualification last year. 

All these said, Philippines and Turkmenistan are much stronger teams. I know. But still, they are not Asian powerhouse or anything either. Don't forget this is just Challenge Cup where mid-low to low level team in Asia compete. None at this level is consistent enough to score as many goals as they need whenever they want unless the opponent is amateur like NMI or Guam. Although i don't deny it's very unlikely that Cambodia or Brunei will pull off a win or draw against Phils and Turks, what i'm trying to say is, at least the scorelines can be close. There's enough possibilities that Cambodia and Brunei will concede less than combined 6 goals against one of two stronger sides, and if the team is beaten by another in the final match, India can qualify. I mean, think of this kind of scenario for example.

Philippines 2-0 Cambodia

Philippines 3-0 Brunei

Turkmenistan 3-0 Cambodia

Turkmenistan 5-0 Brunei

Turkmenistan 1-0 Philppines

You can switch Phil and Turk, and how does it look ? Looks impossible ? I don't think so. I'd say 40% chance at least.

Well, but in this case, Turks and Phils can play a kind of legally-fixed-match each other for a draw as both teams know all they need to qualify is 7 points. So this is why i earlier said that giving different schedule dates for some groups in this kind of tourney is amateurishly unfair. 

Anyway, i think it's too early to throw the hopes away. 

Shah476

Its unfair yes..kyrgyz got it on those dates due to climate but fils pressed afc suiting their players to make fifa dates.. afc arent the best or fair bunch..

@kid thanks for eatablishing some sense here again...

Shah476

Establishing

Arsenalkid700

> Shah476 said:
> Establishing

There is an "edit" button on top of the post. Just for future reference.

Arsenalkid700

> Shah476 said:
> Its unfair yes..kyrgyz got it on those dates due to climate but fils pressed afc suiting their players to make fifa dates.. afc arent the best or fair bunch..
>
> @kid thanks for eatablishing some sense here again...

No federation is fair. In CONCACAF it is more fucked up because of the Caribbean and Central American Cups. Also it sucks that Canada, the US, and Mexico qualify automatically for the Gold Cup (our Euros). Canada is not even among the better sides in CONCACAF so why should they qualify.

Also, as for me establishing some sense. Cheers.

Terp13

@ Arsenal kid

I did some research like you asked and found that since the last SAFF cup or since the beginning of last year we are 5-1-8. So we won 5 out of the 14 games we played or about 1/3 of them and that is impressive how? And we have won only twice away from India during that time which were the two victories in the Challenge Cup Qualifiers. We couldn't even beat Nepal in DELHI and got blown away by Palestine at home. Our only notable victory was against Syria which clearly did not field a strong squad. The Cameroon team was even lower tier. I guess if we have our best squad forward we would be the best team in South asia but not by a long shot. Afghanistan is overtaking us in all aspects and Maldives and Bangladesh are breathing down our necks. If Afghanistan had anywhere close to the resources we have and a good coach then it would be far ahead of India and we all know that.