Indian Footall Team’s World Cup Qualifier journey has not been the way which they would have wanted, except the match against Qatar. In their last fixture against Bangladesh, Indian team failed to utilise most of their goal scoring opportunities. Gurpreet Singh Sandhu mis-judged the ball from the set-piece and failed to punch it away from the goal area, which made the Bangladeshi striker to score a goal without any ease. Thanks to Adhil Khan’s late header in the dying minutes of the game, that helped India to draw the match. Thus, they avoided humiliation infront of their homecrowd.
In their next fixture, the Blue Tigers face Afghanistan in their home on 14.11.2019. Igor Stimac’s men are looking forward to take 3 points out of this game. Sandesh Jinghan’s injury is one of the major blow for the Indian team. His physical presence in the back four is so crucial. But, Indian Team has other options to fill the void left by him.
Injuries in football are common but for some of them its devastating. Santi Cazorla 34-yr old Spanish midfielder has been under the knife for about 11 times in two years. No one believed that he could play again but the best part is he returned to the National team after a gap of 1302 days to play against the Faroe Islands in UEFA Euro 2020 qualifiers where he captained the team in the second half of the match as Sergio Ramos (captain) left the field.
Injury history:
It all began in the year 2013, where he was playing for his National team (Spain) against Chile in an international friendly match and got kicked by his opponent in his right ankle which caused a fissure in his bone but managed to play the 90 minutes. The pain continued after that. In December 2015, he ruptured the left knee ligament and undergone surgery in his left knee. After rest, he came to training but the old ankle was still causing a lot of problems to him. In 2016, when he was for Arsenal in the Champions League match against Ludogorets he couldn’t bear the pain further and got subbed straight away. On consulting with the doctors, they found out that there was an infection in his right ankle which keeps spreading and the bacteria ate about 8cm of his Achilles tendon. Arsene Wenger the head coach of Arsenal at that time when asked about Santi he said”
I have been in touch with Santi throughout his rehab, and it has been extremely tough and testing for him. If there is one guy who loves football passionately, loves to be on the pitch and comes in with a smile every day when he is fit, it’s Santi Cazorla, so you know he suffers a lot not to be out there with the ball at his feet.
“He is extremely strong and brave, and behind his smile is a strength you would not guess. He is a very strong character, and everyone at Arsenal wishes him well and we hope to have him back soon.”
31 October 2017 – Football – Santi Cazorla shows off his ankle after an operation ; skin from his arm had to be grafted onto his ankle
Picture of his injured ankle
After series of surgeries doctors couldn’t stop the infection and they even thought to remove his leg to avoid the infection from being spread to other parts of his body Through persistent efforts of doctors they finally cured his ankle after 10 surgeries.
He now has skin from his right arm – which has a tattoo of his daughter’s name on it – grafted on to the affected area of his foot. His passion and love for the game made him to fight all the odds to play again .
The most common question asked by millions of Indian football fans across the globe. Another question is when will India qualify for the FIFA world cup?. Answer to these questions can’t be explained in a single post and its a vast topic. So let me emphasis a particular point here.
Start young:
In my opinion one of the main reasons is, we start to play a little late. Normally kids in our country start to play any sport around the age of about 10-12 years. But kids in European countries start to play early and are acquiring skills faster. A 12-yr old kid from European countries can match the technique and skill of 15-yr old kid in India. I am not saying that we lack potential. We have many talented players in our country but we failed to nurture them from the beginning. We have seen videos featuring young Messi juggling a tennis ball, Ronaldinho netting tremendous goals in a futsal, etc the list goes on. The thing which I try to convey is that footballing nations spot the potential talents at a young age and guide them in the best possible way to reach greater heights and we failed in that area.
But that’s not the case now in recent times, our nation witnessed the exponential rise in football. Not to forget that our Blue Tigers managed to jump from 173 to 101 in the FIFA, rankings in the short period under Constantine which is a great achievement. A lot of young talents were given opportunities under his regime. Also, under Igor Stimac lot of young players were given the chance to play for national colours such as Sahal Abdul Samad, Lallianzuala Chhangte, Amarjit Singh Kiyam, Narendar Gahlot, etc and the list goes on. Thanks to I-league and ISL which helped to spot the potential young guns of our nation. On the whole, our national team is going in the right direction and it’s a long way to reach our target but we will reach there soon. And we will see our Indian flag flying high in the world’s biggest stage (world cup).
The Indian Football team is in the transformation stage under the Croatian head coach Igor Stimac. After the disappointing performance in the first two games of the Intercontinental cup against Tajikistan (India lost 2-4) and North Korea (India lost 2-5), the blue tigers played well in the third game against Syria (India drew 1-1). Under Stimac, the Indian team is trying to find the best combination to reach the next in the world arena.
As the groups have been drawn for Qualifiers for the World cup-2022 and AFC Asian cup-2023.India is placed in a tricky group. India (currently placed 101 in the Fifa Rankings) in a group alongside AFC Asian Cup champions Qatar (55), Gulf champions Oman (86) , Afghanistan (149) and Bangladesh (183). The teams will play a double round-robin format with home and away games.
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