New Delhi: India football coach Igor Stimac has said that he is happy with the young players in the squad and said that they can get better in the coming years if they have less pressure to deal with.
The team is currently in Dubai where they are preparing to face the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Monday. They had earlier played out a 1-1 draw against Oman in a match in which India had fielded as many as 10 debutants.
“I’m happy as a coach because all these youngsters are down to earth. So I don’t need to spend time with this educational process because we don’t have time,” he said in a virtual press conference on Sunday when asked if he was worried about getting the players to keep their feet on the ground.
“I’m very happy, they are down to earth boys and keen to learn. My only request to everyone is to be patient, don’t put pressure on them. If there is no pressure, they will get better,” said Stimac.
Stimac said that he will be dropping senior centre back Sandesh Jhingan in the match against UAE as he is using the two friendlies in Dubai to test out the younger players in the team. Jhingan had been paired with debutant Chinglensana Singh in the last match and Stimac indicated that he would be giving a debut to Mashoor Shereef and play Adil Khan at the back against UAE.
Stimac also said that he is using the two friendlies to determine which players he can include in the next national camp which will be held before India playe their 2022 FIFA World Cup qualifiers June 3.
“Sandesh is not involved in the next game, I want to see Mazhar and Adil as well. We are going to see everyone who didn’t play in the first game play in the second game. No credits for the past, each training, each next day is competition, that is how we work. There will be no more experiments in upcoming camp so these friendly games are being used to find out which players can come there,” said Stimac.
IANS