Eyes on the future

Stimac is not thinking just about Intercontinental Cup only but to develop the team for the future in the ongoing preparatory camp of Indian football team at Mumbai Football Arena.

Indian Senior National Team Head Coach Igor Stimac’s second assignment after Kings Cup is the next month’s Intercontinental Cup in Ahmedabad. But the former international footballer from Croatia has included many youngsters in the 35 probables for the ongoing preparatory camp at Mumbai Football Arena.

The 51-year-old has been working on these youngsters to make his intentions clear of building a ‘team for future.’ Stimac who coached Croatia to qualify for the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 has already handed an international debut to 18-year-old Amarjit Singh against Curacao in the Kings Cup and have even praised him for his “excellent play.”

Amarjit isn’t alone, Anwar Ali (junior), and Narender Gahlot is part of the current camp. Incidentally, all these youngsters have been a part of the Indian Arrows project, with Amarjit, and Anwar having been part of the Indian U-17 World Cup team.

Infact Amarjit, who became the first player born in the 21st century to represent the Blue Tigers wasn’t the only one handed debut by Stimac. The Head coach gave as many as six debuts against a tough Curacao team in the Kings Cup opener - Michael Soosairaj was one of them.

Soosairaj praised the former World Cupper for bringing in fresh ideas. “The new coach has brought in a lot of fresh ideas on how to train the players and prepare them for the style that he wants us to implement on the pitch,” Soosairaj told AIFF media. The midfielder revealed the stress is on attaining top international fitness standards and maintaining it.

“We have to stay fit, if we are to have a chance of making it to the team. And by saying ‘staying fit,’ I mean attaining top international fitness standards. We were provided individual programmes (during the break),” he said.

Stimac has been observing the progress of the boys in the camp in terms of fitness and has already made clear that he is “still not insisting on results” in the Intercontinental Cup.  And Instead, his focus will be keeping the ball as long a possible. “I would rather concentrate on improvement on ball possession, and movements without ball,” he had said.

The tickets for the Intercontinental Cup in Ahmedabad have been made available by the AIFF, and are priced from Rs 100 onwards.

The second edition of the Hero Intercontinental Cup will kick-off on July 7 with defending champions India taking on Tajikistan on the opening day. Syria and DPR Korea are the other two participating teams. Every team will play each other once, with the top two making it to the final which is slated for July 19.

All matches will be held at the EKA Arena in Ahmedabad, and will kick off at 8 PM IST. To buy tickets, fans can visit the link:http://bit.ly/HICTickets.

India won the previous edition in Mumbai after defeating Kenya in the final which was witnessed by a packed house at the Mumbai Football Arena in June last year.