The Indian football team will take the field against China, the Asian Games hosts, at 5pm India time on Tuesday evening. And as we publish this piece at 5pm on September 18, exactly 24 hours before the game, the team hasn’t even reached Hangzhou. They will touch down only four or five hours from now, and will play their first game within 18 hours of reaching the host city.
Also, of the 22 players picked for the Asian Games, India will be missing the services of five for the first match against China. Aniket Jadhav, Narender Gahlot, Chinglensana Singh, Gurkirat Singh and Lalchungnunga aren’t traveling with the team, and will reach China in batches later over the next few days.
The team departed Delhi at 10pm last night and landed in Singapore early morning today. They boarded the flight for China after an 11-hour layover.
In Singapore, the players, sleep deprived, managed some rest in the spa because the airport hotel was overbooked and did not have rooms available.
India will have just two defenders available for selection against China.
These are all facts, without an iota of exaggeration. And yet the team led by Sunil Chhetri and coached by Igor Stimac will surely try their best in China.
International sport isn’t about miracles. We keep hearing that you need to prepare well to be able to deliver good performances. This Indian team hasn’t prepared. They will not have time for a single training session on landing. Rather, the boys will need some rest to get over the jet lag. And yet we will all be hoping that they put up a fight. A bad effort, and all the good performances of the last three months will be quickly forgotten. Few will remember the circumstances that they have been through to get to China. Few will remember that they haven’t ever trained together.
It is time to be realistic. The best option for Stimac would be to focus on the next two games and try to make it to the next round. Even if India lose to China and win the next two, they should qualify and that’s what must be the aim. Being optimistic, is fine but no amount of optimism is enough for a good showing against the hosts. That’s why we need to keep things real. To know the ground reality, and what our boys are up against. This tournament is also a learning in that we need to ensure such a situation is never repeated in future. That every stakeholder came forward in the end is a good sign for Indian football. Only, they should have come together earlier to ensure that the boys reached at least three days earlier, so that they could get a couple of training sessions at least. To sleep in a spa and play football the next day is not really professional. To expect miracles would also not be fair. As Indian supporters who will watch the match tomorrow, we should remember these realities. And if India lose, it is important we don’t hold it against the players. Rather, we should look ahead to the Myanmar and Bangladesh games, and hope the players get some much-needed rest by then. To expect them to live up to expectations in the present scenario is little short of cruel.
