Siliguri: The night after being held to a 1-1 draw by Philippines in the first of the back-to-back International Friendlies, the Indian National Team had a recovery session at the Kanchenjunga Stadium in Siliguri on Saturday (November 16) morning.
India next play Nepal in another International Friendly at the same Stadium on November 19 (Tuesday).
The morning session an interesting schoolboy visiting and waiting for autographs. The kid had headed to the Training Session straight after being discharged from Hospital where he was admitted for high fever.
“He is a big fan. So I brought him here,” his dad informed. “Meeting his heroes will give him solace.”
Needless to say, the Team India Players obliged him. The boy went back happy.
National Coach Wim Koevermans, nevertheless, hasn’t yet finalised his Starting XI for the next match though he admitted about “keeping his options open.”
“Maybe we will rotate some Players. Let’s see what we can do,” Koevermans said on the sidelines of the recovery session. “Nepal are a very serious opponent, a very good Team,” he added.
Referring to a question as to whether India would be ‘seeking redemption’ in the next match, Koevermans pronounced. “We want to do better against them. We got a result against Philippines who are a much stronger Team. In fact, we should have won it in injury time.”
“We want to win against Nepal,” he stated.
Midfielder Mehtab Hossain opined that Nepal’s style of play has changed over the years. “They have a new Coach. They prefer to kick and run. They will come very strong at you,” he maintained. “We should have won against Philippines. We will surely carry the confidence of the Philippines match into our next match.”
For the record, the last time India played Nepal, the Himalayan neighbours had the better of India 2-1 in the 2013 SAFF Championship held in Kathmandu in September.
“If you look through our Team list you will find a whole new bunch of talented Players. So one needs to be patient and give us that much time to settle down. For example, Lenny (Rodrigues) and myself have now been playing together for over a Year in the National Team. So our telepathy has grown with every match,” Mehtab pronounced.
“We could have easily picked up some weaker opponents to play against in the International Friendlies. But we prefer to play against stronger Teams. If you look at the opponents we played, you’ll find that Singapore are now the Suzuki Cup Champions and Tajikistan and Palestine are very strong too,” Koevermans reiterated.
“Striker Robin Singh is being monitored. He doesn’t look bad as it had seemed,” Koevermans informed about Robin’s niggle which he picked up while playing against Philippines.
