Indian men’s football team coach Igor Stimac warned against complacency and asked the fans to come in numbers to support the team as they start their AFC Asian Cup qualifiers campaign at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan from Wednesday.
“We are expecting football fans to come in numbers to stand with the national team to push the boys to be extra strength, for the next for the heart for the mindset in helping us to win these three games,” the 54-year-old Croatian said at the pre-match press conference in Kolkata.
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Defender Sandesh Jihngan reiterated the coach’s sentiment, adding, “We know what we need to do. I’ve always said that expectation on the group itself on each other is so high because we know the potential of this class the score is very high so we know we need to start delivering and that we are motivated and individually as well.”
India, ranked 106, have been placed alongside Afghanistan, Hong Kong and Cambodia in Group D and face the latter in their opener. India can qualify if they top the group or one of the best five second-placed teams.
In fact, on paper India are the strongest and are expected to sail through with Hong Kong ranked 147th, Afghanistan 150th and Cambodia 171st.
When asked about the ‘easy’ opening game against the lower-ranked team, Stimac fired back. He pointed out that the difference in quality from the teams in the lower half of the FIFA ranking is not much and the team will not take any opponent lightly.
“I don’t look at the rankings and Cambodia didn’t come here just to participate. They came here with the same desire, to win the games. When India were 184 and 150, India did not go to participate, they did not go to lose, they went to win games,” said Stimac.
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“I will never say we’re going to be beating anyone easily. Because that wouldn’t do good in motivational going for my team. We need to be hungry for this and we need to be ready we need to be fully motivated. And if you are preparing your team to go out and play an easy game, to get an easy win, it will never happen.
“Today football doesn’t bring easy games. I am sorry. It doesn’t bring easy games anymore. That was 50 years ago. From 100 position on the right thing until 180 or 200, there are no easy games. There is a very small margin of difference in the quality and that makes a difference. Do you score or don’t? that’s what makes the difference. If you open up the scoring early that makes your opponents very nervous. And that changes everything – mindset, confidence and result. So let’s look at football from a very realistic point.”
When asked about the recent results in the preparation for the qualifiers, Stimac conceded that the team may not be ready completely, but are at the halfway stage of ‘readiness’.
“I’m not worried about it for the simple reason. You were watching us in the middle part of our preparation and the players were still not fully ready for 90 minutes. Now when we are at the end of our preparation and it should be more concentrated. We should have more strength in our legs, more oxygen in our brains to handle the game for 90 minutes,” the head coach said.
Stimac informed that all the players in the squad are fit and ready for the Game against Cambodia and only Rahul Bheke will miss out, who is expected to recover in time for the second game against Afghanistan.
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