Asia Cup Football

Asia Cup on top of the head the Indian coach along with other officials has declared the 23 men squad for the AFC Asian Cup which will be held from January 7 to 29 in Qatar. Indian team who has qualified to this Major sporting event after 24 years is placed next to Asian super powers South Korea, Bahrain and Australia in Group stages. The opposition being of such a caliber it was very important to pick up a strong squad from the Injury struck Indian squad.

There was not much surprise in the team selection as Baichung Bhutia was named as the captain and along with him Sunil Chhetri will lead the attack right from the front.  The injured goal keeper Arindam Bhattacharya was replaced by young Gurpreet Singh Sandhu. The other injured players Samir Naik along with inform Anthony Pereira was also excluded from the squad.

The surprise exclusion was striker Mohammed Rafi and was replaced by Sushil Kumar Singh who almost seemed to be out of touch in the international friendlies. Others missing out from the 30 player’s preparatory squad are defender Nallappan Mohanraj; midfielders James Lukram Singh, Jagpreet Singh, Baljit Singh Sahni.

The complete squad is as follows:

India

Goalkeepers: Subrata Paul (Pune FC), Subhasish Roychowdhury (Dempo SC), Gurpreet Singh Sandhu (AIFF XI)

Defenders: Surkumar Singh (Mohun Bagan), Gouramangi Moirangthem (Churchill Brothers), Anwar Ali (Free Agent), Mahesh Gawli (Dempo SC), Syed Rahim Nabi (East Bengal), Deepak Mandal (Free Agent), N.S. Manju (Free Agent), Rakesh Masih (Mohun Bagan) & Govin Singh (Free Agent)

Midfielders: Steven Dias (Churchill Brothers), N.P.Pradeep (Free Agent), Climax Lawrence (Dempo SC), Clifford Miranda (Dempo SC), Renedy Singh (Free Agent), Mehrajuddin Wadoo (East Bengal), Baldeep Singh (JCT)

Strikers: Bhaichung Bhutia (East Bengal), Sunil Chhetri (Sporting Kansas City), Abhishek Yadav (Free Agent) & Sushil Kumar Singh (East Bengal)

Officials: Robert Douglas Houghton (Chief Coach), Savio Medeira (Assistant Coach), Antonio Marcus Pacheco (Goalkeeper Coach), Suresh Babu (Physical Trainer), Dr. Gagan Kapoor (Physiotherapist), Liaqat Ali (Masseur), Sanjay Kumar (Media Manager), Raul Fernandes (Manager), Subrata Dutta (Chef de Mission), Larsing L Sawayan (Head of Delegation).

India will start there Asian cup campaign against Australia on January 10th against Australia and will meet Bahrain on the 14th and their final match in the group stages will be against two time winners  South Korea on 18th January.

It would be interesting to see how Bob Houghton’s men display a performance in Qatar. Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope this to be a major turning point in the history of Indian Football.

Tags: AFC Asian Cup, Asian Cup 2011, Baichung Bhutia, Football, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, India, Indian Football, Sunil Chhetri