Indian football team camp for Asian Cup qualifiers to begin on April 24

Manama: The Indian football team will have a six-week national camp from April 24 before the final round of Asian Cup qualifiers, to be held in Kolkata from June 8.

India will play Hong Kong, Afghanistan and Cambodia from June 8 to 14 in Group D matches to be played at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata. The winners of the six groups and five best second-placed teams across groups will make it to the Asian Cup in China in 2023. The matches of the six groups will be held in different countries.

"Our next camp starts on April 24 and within two weeks we are going to isolate the players and do testings to ensure that there are no injuries," head coach Igor Stimac said during a virtual press conference ahead of the international friendly match against Bahrain here on Wednesday. "35 players will selected and tested and then 28 players will be picked for the upcoming Asian Cup qualifiers. We will have more than six weeks of preparation before the Asian Cup qualifiers."

Explaining the team's preparations, he said, "After a few weeks of training, we will play friendly matches. We are playing a total three international friendlies and there is negotiations going on (about the opponents).

"The plan is to have the last international friendly in the last week of May, that is 8-10 days before the qualifiers. These (matches) may be in played either in Kolkata or Doha in Qatar, we have to decide."

Talimanic striker Sunil Chhetri has been ruled out of the international friendlies against Bahrain (on Tuesday) and Belarus (on Saturday) due to an injury, and Stimac said it is the best time for the younger ones to prove themselves.

"We have Manvir, Liston and Rahim as strikers in place of Sunil. But the whole team should replace him. I expect these players to take up more responsibility and create more chances as Sunil is not here with us," he stated. "They should now forget about Sunil at this moment. He will join us for the upcoming matches (for the qualifiers)." The head coach also said that number one goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu will be persisted with despite him not having a great Indian Super League season with Bengaluru FC.

"The goalkeeper's position is very important for such international matches and we will stick with our goalkeeper number one, who is Gurpreet Singh, never mind he did not have a very successful ISL season," Stimac said. "He has been training with our goalkeeping coach in the last 10-12 days and we are trying to bring him to his best. One position I am trying to keep very stable is that of the goalkeeper. He is the best goalkeeper we have in

the country."