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NEW DELHI, 1 Nov: The Indian men\u2019s football team\u2019s performance in the recent Asian Games in Hangzhou was on Wednesday described as \u201csatisfactory under the circumstances\u201d by the national federation\u2019s (AIFF) technical committee. A rag-tag Indian team with just Sunil Chhetri and Sandesh Jhingan as notable names was assembled in the eleventh hour after the Indian Super League clubs refused to release their players named in the original squad.<\/p>\n
The team reached Hangzhou just hours before the first group match and the strategy sessions were held in flight and on transit. But the side still reached the knock-out round only to lose to Saudi Arabia in the round of 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe technical committee felt the performance of the men\u2019s team was satisfactory considering the circumstances where the team reached just before the tournament and many players in the original squad were not there,\u201d All India Football Federation (AIFF) secretary general Shaji Prabhakaran told PTI.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoreover, the team did better (in Hangzhou) than the last edition (2014) where India crashed out in the group stage,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The technical committee meeting, held virtually, was chaired by former India captain IM Vijayan and attended by Prabhakaran, technical director Syed Sabir Pasha, and members Pinky Bompal Magar, Harjinder Singh, Arun Malhotra, Climax Lawrence and Eugeneson Lyngdoh.<\/p>\n
Prabhakaran said the technical committee did not discuss anything specific relating to India head coach Igor Stimac, whose contract was extended by two years after the Asian Games campaign.<\/p>\n
Earlier, Stimac was asked to take the national team to the quarterfinals of the AFC Asian Cup in January next year or face the axe.<\/p>\n
The technical committee members also recommended that the matter of players being released by clubs for tournaments like the Asian Games be discussed at the next Executive Committee meeting, the AIFF said in a release.<\/p>\n
The Vijayan-led commi-ttee also recommended that the national women\u2019s team be given longer preparation time and friendly matches to prepare for such big events like the Asian Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cMembers of the (technical) committee agreed that the senior women\u2019s national team performed admirably against tough opponents like Thailand and the Chinese Taipei in the Asian Games,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n
In another significant development, the technical committee recommended former defender and current India assistant coach Mahesh Gawli to take charge of developing players from under-20 onwards.<\/p>\n
Gawli, who was named India U-23 coach at the same time of Stimac\u2019s contract extension, was also recommended by the technical committee to lead the project for the development of other junior teams, in order to streamline the progression of the players.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea is to give Gawli the responsibility of developing players from 20 years of age onwards. You cannot build U-23 team if you don\u2019t know the players from 20 years of age onwards. You will need two years to reach to U-23 level,\u201d Prabhakaran said. (PTI)<\/p>\n
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NEW DELHI, 1 Nov: The Indian men\u2019s football team\u2019s performance in the recent Asian Games in Hangzhou was on Wednesday described as \u201csatisfactory under the circumstances\u201d by the national federation\u2019s (AIFF) technical committee. A rag-tag Indian team with just Sunil Chhetri and Sandesh Jhingan as notable names was assembled in the eleventh hour after the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-227563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227563\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}