Even though the Indian football team for men failed to win a single game in the Intercontinental Cup, Igor Stimac, the head coach has an opportunity to brush-up his preparations for the qualifiers of FIFA World Cup 2022 in the month of September.
Prior to the event of a draw, Stimac was asked what India needs to be worried about in regards to the upcoming competition and the message of the Croatian was pretty clear. He said they respect everyone and that is what he is going to teach his team. Not just the top teams but also teams from the lower tier. He states that they are not scared of anyone.
The draw match on Wednesday in Kuala Lumpur has placed them in a tricky group along with Qatar, Afghanistan, Gulf Champions Oman, and Bangladesh. The teams are going to play double a format of round-robin with away, as well as home games.
In the year 2018, India had finished at the bottom of the 2nd round of previous edition World Cup qualifiers for Asia as they played against Oman, Turkmenistan, and Guam. The draw is quite easier on paper but the Blue Tigers are going to face a challenge at the beginning of the campaign. They are just going to play Qatar and Oman in the opening two games and how they are going to play against the team that ranked higher than them at the start is going to have a great impact in the remaining group games. Indian online betting field is looking forward to India becoming a part of FIFA World Cup 2022.
Opponent Teams of India
A closer look at the opponents of India will tell you that Qatar is the toughest opponents in the group and bettors can win jackpot online by betting on their player or the team. They have a good account in Copa America and had given teams like Colombia and Paraguay a run for their money. However, since they have already been chosen as the host of FIFA World Cup 2022, they might be experimenting with a weaker side in qualifiers.
Oman is another tough competitor and also the one that India requires for getting better. In the Asia Cup, they proceeded from the group stage on to the third-best team but had been defeated by Iran in Round 16.
Afghanistan ranks 48 spaces below India and is one of the teams which is in transition. The country doesn’t have affiliated football league and most of the players in the team play in different leagues across Asia and Europe. The experience that they have might be targeted by the opponents in the group.
The underdogs in the group are Bangladesh. India can be positive about their opportunities against the neighboring states but obviously, they should not take them lightly. India had faced Bangladesh about 5 years ago in a friendly match and the last qualifier for World Cup had been in 1985 where India won by an aggregate of 2-1.
It is being expected that Bangladesh will look forward to an improved show following the loss of seven games and draw in one of them in the qualifiers of World Cup 2018.
India might have failed to achieve the desired outcome in the 5 games under the guidance of Stimac till now. However, the international cup will enable him to identify the players that he will be able to depend upon and the strategies that he will be able to implement for the game.
Comments of the Indian Captain
Sunil Chhetri had said that you can do the permutations and combinations according to your knowledge but he has been to draw and over there all mathematics goes out of the window. It just luck but in the end if you are not good in the game, you will not be able to do anything.
Stimac had been the one to guide Croatian team to the World Cup and India can hope to depend on someone who is aware of how to reach to the top.
Tags: FIFA World Cup, FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022, Football, Qatar
