AFC Asian Cup: Ravaged by injuries, India face World No 25 Australia first up

Facing an Australian team ranked 25th in the world – one that gave Leo Messi hell at the 2022 World Cup and troubled England with their physically monstrous set piece routines – is a daunting task in itself for India. And if that isn’t enough, the Blue Tigers are without four press-resistant players that constituted a well-built spine of the team for the first time in decades. What could have been a showcase of how far Indian football has come in the last one year is now set to be reduced to an act of mere survival at Ahmed bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan on Saturday as both teams begin their Asian Cup 2023 campaign.

It is remarkable how things have gone against India in the build-up to this tournament. Coach Igor Stimac pleaded for more time with the team but instead got a grand total of 12 days. If India was Japan, 12 days would be no issue but the time it takes Stimac to scrub the poor domestic structure out of his players is where the issue lies.

And if time with the team was withheld, a slew of injuries to major players made matters so much worse. Central defender Anwar Ali – a key defensive player who decided the space between the India defensive line and their offensive line – was lost to a long-term knee injury. Jeakson Singh, a metronome passer who rarely gave the ball away and boosted India’s capabilities when they had possession, is out injured as well. And then Sahal Abdul Samad, a tireless attacking midfielder who put defensive pressure in the final third and combined it with a creative presence against heavy-set defences, was taken with the team and was part of the press conference but is clearly not fit enough to play. Three players that represented the new way that the Indian football team played, all out of