Now again we back to Stimac. He has won just 1 match so far in his tenure with India. And worst part was, in qualifiers despite fielding our best team we could not defeat Bangladesh or Afghanistan! So this humiliating 0-6 cannot be attributed solely to new players or lack of chemistry. Stimac has to own up responsibility with his faulty strategies and playing style. No country drastically changes its playing style in 2-3 years. Change of football philosophy or culture takes a full generation of footballers before it is completely internalized by the domestic footballing circuit of the country. And at that we don't have a proper youth system in place which can inculcate a new footballing system to young players. And we can play simple short, passing game which won't require much to change and will be beneficial for us. The best example of a technically inferior team like ours playing a simple possession based, short passing game is Kyrgyzstan. When they visited India for the invitational tournament in July 2019, I was mighty impressed by their players playing a simple passing game against us. Their players are not very technically gifted but because of them holding the possession due to short passes, they were dominating us. We can emulate that style if we are intent on playing a passing game. Plus Kyrgyz players were much more physically fit and were pressing us much more intently and closing us down quickly. These are aspects which don't require much technical skill set but can ve very effective. But very very sad and heartbroken to see yesterday's match.
Physicality is learnt against young strong players in a competitive and long domestic league which india lacks.
Yesterday if you guys remember one occassion UAE player gave a strong shoulder push to Aashique Kuruniyan and he fell down on the ground. They scored Goal seconds after that. Mind you it was not a Foul. That was the difference in standard of clubs and Training Ground which UAE players play in and what our players experience. our players were scared to even go close and challenge UAE footballers.
4 month league, 8 month offseason, barely 20 odd games in one calendar year, 30 plus aged foreign players, daily one game in India - how will we improve ??
Fitness and Physicality are two different things. Fitness one can still get thru long camps and young players. But for Physicality you need to gain valuable experience in a competitive and long Domestic season.
Legendary
supersubs I can think of are Peter Crouch, Solksjaer, Trezeguet, Kanu.
But they were all backed up with a plan. That what Defenders and Full
Backs from Opposition Team were doing wrong. Team Management on the bench chalk up a strategy on that and brief the Super Sub
What was stimac's plan when our supersub
struggled to even touch the ball !!!
1 observation and like many of you have already mentioned, ISL speed is very slow. Indian players take too many unnecessary touches and lot of time to pass around. Even the slide tackles and challenges from our players are at-least good few seconds slower. Oman and UAE could easily read and snatch the ball on many occasions.
Lessons from 0-6 loss to UAE: retool domestic structure, play more such friendlies
None of this means that a 6-0 scoreline should be airbrushed. Things are far from right in India’s football and AIFF and the company that runs the top league could use this result to course-correct. The domestic season could be a starting point. Twenty league games--like it is in the expanded Indian Super League (ISL)--cannot a season make and this has nothing to do with the pandemic. Teams play 34 games in J-League and 38 in K-League; even in UAE they play 26 league games. More games add to cost in an environment where everyone is losing money but if India are to look beyond television commentators’ platitudes during ISL about how far it has come as a football country, it has to be done.
Most states don’t have a strong league, if at all, and that means across the country, teams don’t play enough. How about AIFF disaffiliating units that don’t conduct annual home and away state or city leagues that run for three months? This could mean losing votes but isn’t improving India’s standing in football AIFF’s raison d’etre?
Beyond that, AIFF could club India’s traditional tournaments--the Durand Cup, IFA Shield, a revived Rovers Cup perhaps--as season openers. This would give ISL and I-League teams a chance to get ready for the leagues and extend the season, meaning the off-season could be reduced to four months (April-July) instead of six.
The idea of a reserves league too can be looked at. Yes, this too would cost money but teams losing ₹25 crore per ISL season could be convinced to add a bit to their losses for greater good. What this would do is give those on the bench some games. ATK Mohun Bagan’s Sumit Rathi played only 255 minutes this term because he was below Sandesh Jhingan in the pecking order. Now 19, the central defender played 1170 minutes in 2019-20 as ATK won the title. In a crunched season, it was understandable ATK Mohun Bagan wouldn’t want to loan out Rathi but it also meant he hardly got to play. Ergo, a reserve league.
Most importantly, a reserve league would help create a pathway for youth team players. “Har Tendulkar Sachin nahin hota hai (Not every Tendulkar is Sachin),” says a character in the 2021 film “Paggliat” while talking about stereotypes. It is good that a string of young players from Hyderabad FC did well enough in ISL7 to be called by Stimac but not every footballer who has just completed 18 will have the ability that will fast-track them into the senior team. Hence, the need to invest in a reserve/development league.
Prior to the start of ISL7, Reliance Youth Foundation announced than nine from its stable have found an ISL club. But a season with no youth competition meant they could only train. Again, a reserve league could have given them a few games. To trim costs, this league can be played in a single venue or split into east and south zones with Mumbai City FC and FC Goa, the two teams from the west, being allotted to either zone. This league too could have a play-off semi-finals and a final.
Given how clubs haemorhhage money, it is a stretch asking them to invest in well run academies but that is a sure way of trying to grow organically. Vietnam, whose league has 14 teams, has done that and it helped them qualify for the 2017 under-20 World Cup.
How a national team performs is always a function of how strong the fundamentals are at home. India have taken some steps such as starting youth leagues and baby leagues but because the structure is still wobbly, consistent improvement for the national team is some time away. That means India will occasionally surprise Qatar and China and be surprised by Bangladesh, Afghanistan and hurt by UAE. Our true standard is possibly somewhere in between.
I know the results have hurt our ego, mine too. But believe me , we are not as that bad as it is made out to be. At this moment it is important to regroup , be with our national team and give them hope we will be back and with attitude. All if what you are saying is absolutely correct, but I am still convinced we have far improved players. You cant just play an entire new team against an opponent like UAE. Its just that we did not show them respect and they paid us back dearly.
Also looking at above, UAE has 26 games league, thats not that much is it. Yest game we lacked an experienced matured player who can hold on during such a fest. We lacked a leader and we lacked tactics. That it. All rest falls into place when one looses badly. I have seen tjis team past 5 years, and I have been watching national team sine late 80s and I believe we have better technical players now. Regarding slowness of league, thats not something you can change immediately, both the leagues are not there up to the mark, only top quality players can help there.
I think our wingers and wing-backs are actually weaker than the central players. The availability is just the opposite.
That is because of ISL foreigner policy. All coaches prefer Indians in those positions, except a few foreign wingers. The wide Indian players usually play against Indian players itself. When they are against superior teams like UAE yesterday they lose out. See how easily Akash Mishra was brushed off by UAE winger.
Wingbacks have always been a problem in our NT. In recent times we tried Narayan, Jerry Subasish, Mandar and now Akash in left. The former 4 are not good enough for int football. So is our rightback. Pritam and Bheke too are not good enough. Among the wingers, I think only Udanta Singh made a reasonable impact.
Comments
But very very sad and heartbroken to see yesterday's match.
Lessons from 0-6 loss to UAE: retool domestic structure, play more such friendlies
None of this means that a 6-0 scoreline should be airbrushed. Things are far from right in India’s football and AIFF and the company that runs the top league could use this result to course-correct. The domestic season could be a starting point. Twenty league games--like it is in the expanded Indian Super League (ISL)--cannot a season make and this has nothing to do with the pandemic. Teams play 34 games in J-League and 38 in K-League; even in UAE they play 26 league games. More games add to cost in an environment where everyone is losing money but if India are to look beyond television commentators’ platitudes during ISL about how far it has come as a football country, it has to be done.
Most states don’t have a strong league, if at all, and that means across the country, teams don’t play enough. How about AIFF disaffiliating units that don’t conduct annual home and away state or city leagues that run for three months? This could mean losing votes but isn’t improving India’s standing in football AIFF’s raison d’etre?
Beyond that, AIFF could club India’s traditional tournaments--the Durand Cup, IFA Shield, a revived Rovers Cup perhaps--as season openers. This would give ISL and I-League teams a chance to get ready for the leagues and extend the season, meaning the off-season could be reduced to four months (April-July) instead of six.
The idea of a reserves league too can be looked at. Yes, this too would cost money but teams losing ₹25 crore per ISL season could be convinced to add a bit to their losses for greater good. What this would do is give those on the bench some games. ATK Mohun Bagan’s Sumit Rathi played only 255 minutes this term because he was below Sandesh Jhingan in the pecking order. Now 19, the central defender played 1170 minutes in 2019-20 as ATK won the title. In a crunched season, it was understandable ATK Mohun Bagan wouldn’t want to loan out Rathi but it also meant he hardly got to play. Ergo, a reserve league.
Most importantly, a reserve league would help create a pathway for youth team players. “Har Tendulkar Sachin nahin hota hai (Not every Tendulkar is Sachin),” says a character in the 2021 film “Paggliat” while talking about stereotypes. It is good that a string of young players from Hyderabad FC did well enough in ISL7 to be called by Stimac but not every footballer who has just completed 18 will have the ability that will fast-track them into the senior team. Hence, the need to invest in a reserve/development league.
Prior to the start of ISL7, Reliance Youth Foundation announced than nine from its stable have found an ISL club. But a season with no youth competition meant they could only train. Again, a reserve league could have given them a few games. To trim costs, this league can be played in a single venue or split into east and south zones with Mumbai City FC and FC Goa, the two teams from the west, being allotted to either zone. This league too could have a play-off semi-finals and a final.
Given how clubs haemorhhage money, it is a stretch asking them to invest in well run academies but that is a sure way of trying to grow organically. Vietnam, whose league has 14 teams, has done that and it helped them qualify for the 2017 under-20 World Cup.
How a national team performs is always a function of how strong the fundamentals are at home. India have taken some steps such as starting youth leagues and baby leagues but because the structure is still wobbly, consistent improvement for the national team is some time away. That means India will occasionally surprise Qatar and China and be surprised by Bangladesh, Afghanistan and hurt by UAE. Our true standard is possibly somewhere in between.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/sports/football/lessons-from-0-6-loss-to-uae-retool-domestic-structure-play-more-such-friendlies-101617104601501.html
That is because of ISL foreigner policy. All coaches prefer Indians in those positions, except a few foreign wingers. The wide Indian players usually play against Indian players itself. When they are against superior teams like UAE yesterday they lose out. See how easily Akash Mishra was brushed off by UAE winger.
Wingbacks have always been a problem in our NT. In recent times we tried Narayan, Jerry Subasish, Mandar and now Akash in left. The former 4 are not good enough for int football. So is our rightback. Pritam and Bheke too are not good enough. Among the wingers, I think only Udanta Singh made a reasonable impact.