An injury-hit Indian national football team is scheduled to play a qualifier for the 2019 AFC Asia Cup against Laos later today. The first fixture of the tie will be held in Laos while the home leg will be played in Guwahati on 7th June.
National team coach, Stephen Constantine had to make last minute modifications to the squad as midfielder Vinit Rai suffered an ankle injury in the last training session in Guwahati. Instead of taking 21 players to Laos, only 20 players will now be going there for the second leg.
The coach felt that the team had been hit hard by injuries to key players who would have started for the team on any given day. Midfielders Pronay Halder, Cavin Lobo, Rowlin Borges, Bikash Jairu, and defender Augustine Fernandes are all ruled out due to injuries. Striker Robin Singh and Dhanpal Ramesh have also failed to recover from injuries sustained earlier in addition to the premature exit of CK Vineeth and David Lalriamuana who were summoned to the camp but could not participate due to injury.
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Speaking to the press before the team left for Laos, coach Stephen Constantine said, “A number of our key players are unfortunately injured. In fact, in our last practice session, we lost another promising youngster who might have started.” “But there’s no point looking back and crying. We are ready with what we have.”
He also spoke about how misleading it could be to judge teams by their FIFA rankings. Not underestimating Laos, he said, “There’s a tendency to judge Teams by FIFA Rankings. But we know that Laos have some good Players whom we watched in AFC Cup against Bengaluru FC. On top of that, they would be playing at Home. So we expect it to be difficult.”
The head coach was also asked what he felt about Laos as a football team. He explained, “I have said this many times that there are no easy Teams for us. We need to look at ourselves and do the work which is needed on the field. It’s more about how good we are than our rivals.”
Veteran goalkeeper Subrata Paul has been included in the squad while Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, the first Indian ever to play in a top division league in Europe has also been included in the squad. The goalkeeping department has largely been untouched by the injury crisis.
Also read: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu becomes first Indian to play in top flight European League game
The full squad travelling to Laos is as follows:
GOALKEEPERS: Subrata Paul, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Amrinder Singh.
DEFENDERS: Rino Anto, Keegan Pereira, Pritam Kotal, Arnab Mondal, Sandesh Jhingan, Chinglensana Singh, Fulganco Cardozo, Narayan Das.
MIDFIELDERS: Udanta Singh, Halicharan Narzary, Seityasen Singh, Md. Rafique, Eugenson Lyngdoh, Jackiechand Singh, Alwyn George.
FORWARDS: Sumeet Passi, Jeje Lalpekhlua, Sunil Chhetri.
Laos vs India 2019 AFC ASIA Cup qualifier: Live Telecast details
Kick off time: 17:00 IST
Live telecast: Not Available
Venue: Vientiane
