The wait ended in all certainty when Jeje Lalpekhlua swept Sunil Chhetri’s cross into the net in injury time. The rain that had soaked Bengaluru’s Sree Kanteerava Stadium had at last stopped; Stephen Constantine quietly embraced his staff while behind him the dugout erupted.
Moments later, the whistle went. India had beaten Macau 4-1 and, with two games to spare in Group A, had qualified for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup. “If not the best, this team is surely one of the best Indian teams in history,” Constantine gushed afterwards. “I’m immensely proud of my team.”
Some 15 months have passed since the events of that October evening, and it is finally time for all of India’s grand plans to be put to the test. The Asian Cup will begin this weekend in the UAE, a competition India will be returning to after a gap of eight years. Back in 2011, India had entered the Asian Cup by virtue of having won the 2008 AFC Challenge Cup, beating opposition that was not exactly challenging.
This time around, the side came through the qualifiers in some comfort, though it helped India’s cause that the tournament expanded to 24 teams from 16. The 2019 Asian Cup is a significant milestone for Indian football. It is an opportunity for the national team to demonstrate to Asia — and the rest of the world — that India is an improved (and quickly improving) footballing community.
For all the hype and self-congratulation that follow India’s every move upwards in the FIFA rankings, it is worth noting that since its last appearance in the Asian Cup in 2011, the side has played only two matches against an opponent in the continent’s top six: the two World Cup qualifiers against Iran in 2015-16. It is not always for want of trying. The big teams want to play one another; India — in the continent’s eyes — is no superpower.
Chhetri put it bluntly last June. “Only once we start playing the likes of Japan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Australia and South Korea regularly will we have a reference point,” he said. “We’ll know how far behind we are. Only when we are in the top 10 (in Asia) can we go and ask one of these teams to play a friendly against us. Right now, why would they want to play against us? It’s sad, but that’s how it is. When Japan is meeting tough teams like Senegal and Colombia at the World Cup, why would they want to face us? For them to take us seriously, we need to be in the top 10.”
The 2019 Asian Cup, then, is a chance for India to rub shoulders with the continent’s best. Eight years ago, Bob Houghton’s men were placed in a group alongside South Korea, Australia and Bahrain; to nobody’s surprise, they lost all three games. This time around, India finds itself pooled with Thailand, the UAE, and Bahrain. On paper, things look rosy: only the UAE (79) is ranked higher than India (97). But Bahrain (113), which over the last 12 months has drawn with Iraq, Qatar and China, and defeated Lebanon, will prove hard to beat.
Thailand (118), meanwhile, is a far better unit than the rankings suggest; having perhaps been on par with India a decade ago, the Thais are now one of Asia’s fastest improving outfits, an attractive quick-passing side with three players competing in the Japanese league.
But the draw could have been a lot worse. And with four third-placed teams also to advance to the last 16, India will feel it is in with a decent chance. Constantine’s men will also draw encouragement from recent performances in friendlies against China, Jordan, and Oman: they lost 2-1 to Jordan with nearly half of the first-choice eleven missing and drew with the other two. In Suzhou, China twice hit the crossbar and India was forced into some last-ditch work in the goalmouth, but the defensive organisation was largely solid.
“I like the way we fought against China,” says former international Renedy Singh, who played in midfield at the 2011 Asian Cup. “Against Myanmar and Kyrgyzstan (in the qualifiers) we were not great. But this was an improvement. Thailand and Bahrain are not South Korea or Australia. If we fight, we can get good results.”
After taking charge of India for the second time in March 2015, Constantine set about calling up a great number of players. In a little over two years, he had handed out nearly 40 new caps, but the head coach soon settled on a preferred squad. For India’s trip to the UAE, he has largely stuck with the players who helped the side qualify, regardless of current form. The likes of Rahul Bheke, Lallianzuala Chhangte, Jobby Justin, and Farukh Choudhary have made strong cases for inclusion in the squad of 23 but they have been ignored. This, predictably, has sparked much debate.
“Constantine has taken the players he trusts; it is something any coach will do,” says Renedy. “But what I feel is that seven or eight months ago, [Michael] Soosairaj, Bheke and Jobby Justin could have been called up to the camp. See if they can jell with the players who are already there; if not, send them back. But they weren’t even tried. Now it’s too late to try new players.”
This is a young Indian squad — the second youngest in the Asian Cup with an average age of 25 — and nobody, with the exception of Chhetri and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, has been to a tournament of this sort before. India will need calm heads and will have to fight for every inch. “You don’t have to play well; you have to defend well and nick a goal,” says Pradhyum Reddy, coach of ISL side FC Pune City.
“We’ve shown that defensively we’re very organised. A couple of hard-fought draws and a hard-fought victory, and maybe we can get out of the group.”
India’s mere presence at the Asian Cup has generated much public interest in the tournament. Any progress beyond the group stages may well come to be regarded, one day, as an inflection point in Indian football.
