Indian Football: The Indian men’s national team head coach Igor Stimac has announced the 25-member squad that will travel to Bahrain to play friendly matches against the hosts and Belarus in preparation for the upcoming AFC Cup qualifiers. Head coach Igor Stimac had earlier announced a list of 38 probables who were training in Pune from March 10 and ultimately decided to cut it down to a 25 member roster. Follow all the Indian Football updates only on InsideSport.IN
The Blue Tigers will face the hosts, Bahrain, on March 23 and Belarus on March 26. Both the matches are set to kick-off at 9.30 P.M (IST). The squad is expected to fly to Bahrain today.
🚨 SQUAD ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨
A squad of 2️⃣5️⃣ #BlueTigers 🐯 will represent India 🇮🇳 in the International Friendlies against Belarus 🇧🇾 & Bahrain 🇧🇭 🤩#BackTheBlue 💙 #IndianFootball ⚽ pic.twitter.com/08InqVnjGn
— Indian Football Team (@IndianFootball) March 21, 2022
The 25-member team that has been called up for the Bahrain friendlies has seven new faces who have received their maiden callup. The players include Golden Glove winner Prabhsukhan Gill, teammate Ruivah Hormipan, Emerging player of the Year Roshan Singh, teammate Danish Farooq, ISL winner Aniket Jadhav, Anwar Ali and VP Suhair. All the players have been exceptional in the recently concluded Indian Super League season.
India will be looking to get some great match practice in Bahrain as they prepare for the AFC Asian Cup qualifiers. The Blue Tigers are drawn in Group D along with Afghanistan, Cambodia and Hong Kong.
Earlier during the national camp, head coach Igor Stimac highlighted how it is not only about the ranking but how they play on pitch aswell. So despite being better in the ranking than all the other teams present in Group D.
“We are playing Bahrain and Belarus, and they are better-ranked sides than us,” Stimac had said earlier. “But whatever the rankings are, you need to do it on the pitch. Bahrain will show us where we stand. We will give chances to some young players who have played well in the ISL this season to see how much we can use them for the qualifiers in June.”
The AFC Asian Cup 2023 Qualifiers final round matches will be held in Kolkata from June 8 onwards.
The list of 25 members is as follows:
GOALKEEPERS: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Amrinder Singh, Prabhshukhan Gill.
DEFENDERS: Pritam Kotal, Seriton Fernandes, Rahul Bheke, Hormipam Ruivah, Sandesh Jhingan, Chinglensana Singh, Akash Mishra, Roshan Singh, Subhasish Bose, Anwar Ali.
MIDFIELDERS: Anirudh Thapa, Pronay Halder, Jeakson Singh, Brandon Fernandes, VP Suhair, Yasir Mohammad, Aniket Jadav, Bipin Singh, Danish Farooq.
FORWARDS: Manvir Singh, Liston Colaco, Rahim Ali.
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