Harpal Singh Bedi
New Delhi, 26 September: Indian senior football team head coach Igor Stimac on Sunday named 23 players for the forthcoming SAFF Championship scheduled in the Maldives from October 1 to 16 .
Besides India – Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and hosts the Maldives are the other teams in the Championship. Each team plays each other once with the top two teams qualifying for the final.
India begin their campaign against Bangladesh on October 4.
After naming the players Stimac said “We are all looking forward to the SAFF Championship as the leading football country in this part of Asia. These 4-5 games are extremely crucial for us as we won’t have any other chance of getting together before the start of 3rd round AFC Asian Cup qualifiers next season. So these matches should help us to improve a few points in our game.”
India’s fixtures in the group stage:
October 4: vs Bangladesh.
October 7: vs Sri Lanka.
October 10: vs Nepal.
October 13: vs the Maldives
The squad;
Goalkeepers: Gurpreet Singh, Amrinder Singh, Vishal Kaith.
Defenders; Pritam Kotal, Seriton Fernandes, Chinglensana Singh, Rahul Bheke, Subhasish Bose, Mandar Rao Dessai.
Midfielders; Udanta Singh, Brandon Fernandes, Lalengmawia, Anirudh Thapa, Sahal Abdul Samad, Jeakson Singh, Glan Martins, Suresh Singh, Liston Colaco, Yasir Mohammad.
Forwards; Manvir Singh, Rahim Ali, Sunil Chhetri, Farukh Choudhary.
India has won the SAFF Championship (formerly SAARC Cup) 7 times – 1993 in Lahore, 1997 in Kathmandu, 1999 in Margao, 2005 in Karachi, 2009 (U23 squad) in Dhaka, 2011 in New Delhi, 2015-16 in Thiruvananthapuram.