New Delhi:<\/strong> The defending champion India is all set to hit the ground hard and start their title defence on a strong note as they Afghanistan in their first match of the SAFF Championship on Saturday. The tournament has always been a happy hunting ground for India as they won the tournament for record five times and undoubtedly start as the tournament favorites. India who came into the tournament with a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of Zambia few days prior to the tournament seems to remain unfazed by it and re ready to move on with it.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cZambia has always been a better team than us, and we took a lot of positives from it. We are not bothered about the past and right now we are concentrating on the present,\u201d said Savio Madeira, India\u2019s coach. The fact that the awesome striking duo of Jeje and Sunil Chettri were missing from the side that lost to Zambia owing to their trials at the Scottish Club Rangers should also taken into in consideration and their return would surely bolster India\u2019s prospect giving to the fact that would start tomorrow against Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
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\u201cJeje and Sunil are the best available striker, but whether they would start or not would be decided at the tomorrow\u2019s team meeting prior to the match,\u201d added Madeira. If due to any reason they don\u2019t start then the striking responsibility would be shared by Joachim Abranches, Sushil Singh and Baljit Sahni.<\/p>\n
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Madeira might stick to his 4-4-2 combination and it is almost certain that Climax Lawrence would retain his central midfielding position. Climax, who lost his place to Baldeep Singh in the second international friendly against Malaysia, would make the cut due to his experience. Baldeep Singh who was quite impressive in the match against Malaysia has good chances of making an appearance in the match at some point of time.<\/p>\n
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There are chances that defender Sameer Naik might miss out on tomorrow\u2019s match as he was not seen in the morning training session due to a niggle. Madeira however remained confident and said that Naik would get before tomorrow\u2019s match.<\/p>\n
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With the heavy weight of South Asian Football all ready to kick off the tournament on a good note, Madeira denied any case of over confidence in the India camp and said that by no means are they taking Afghanistan lightly and would not get complacent. \u201cAfghanistan are a capable side. The match should surely be a good challenge for us,\u2019 added Madeira.<\/p>\n
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On the other hand, Afghanistan who has a very dismal record against India would like to break the jinx and what could be a better thing than beating India in their own background. The visitors would depend a lot on the Norway-based player Belal Arzou, who plays in second division club Asker, Ahmad Arash Hatifie and Mohammad Yusuf Mashriqi, both of whom play in first-division clubs in the US. Afghanistan\u2019s coach Mohammad Yousef Kargar would badly want these players to fire if they really want to pull up an upset victory over India.<\/p>\n
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Samikshan Dutta Choudhury<\/strong><\/p>\nIndian Sports News<\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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New Delhi: The defending champion India is all set to hit the ground hard and start their title defence on a strong note as they Afghanistan in their first match of the SAFF Championship on Saturday. The tournament has always been a happy hunting ground for India as they won the tournament for record five […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-latest"],"yoast_head":"\n
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