SAFF Championships 2021: ‘It’s Difficult to Replace a Leader Like Him’, Igor Stimac on Sandesh Jhingan’s Absence Ahead of India’s Opener Against Bangladesh
Male, Maldives: India coach, Igor Stimac admitted in a Virtual Press Conference on Saturday, ahead of the Blue Tigers’ opener against Bangladesh that they’ll miss the services of premier defender, Sandesh Jhingan who is not a part of the team in the 2021 SAFF Championships. Former ATKMB man, Sandesh Jhingan signed for Croatian First Division side HNK Sibenik back in August and due to the duties of his new club he couldn’t join the team. He is also nursing a calf injury at the same time, which he suffered three days after the signing.
“It is always difficult to replace a leader and Sandesh is one of them. We are going to miss him but we need to work as a team together for the 90 minutes,” Stimac said.
On asked about not having a preparatory camp before the tournament, the former Croatian International said that it wasn’t easy to convince the ISL clubs for their players who are also preparing for the upcoming 2021-22 Indian Super League season and as a result the boys didn’t have a national camp.
“SAFF & AFC are forced to do competitions outside FIFA window. Then the clubs are forced to release players. We had several meetings with FSDL and ISL clubs. Club coaches also want their players for ISL preparation. It was not easy. So we decided to give up on the camp and they released the players for international matches outside the window.”
The former West Ham United defender also shed light on the kind of strategy they’ll be deploying in the tournament.
“We will be playing in a style that will bring us results. There was one counterattack by Nepal and they won the game. Whereas Maldives was the better team. On the other hand, Bangladesh won the game courtesy of a funny penalty. We don’t know what each game will bring. We will adapt to everything that is thrown at us,” Stimac told.
As part of the preparation, India coach said that they are playing just 15-20 minutes, working on the dead-ball situations as Maldives have provided artificial turfs and at no cost he wants his players to get injured.
“We need to understand that the game starts right from the first second. We need to organize our game from the beginning. We came here only four days before. We have to travel to Male on speed boats . There are artificial turfs. We are protecting our players so that they do not get injured. We are playing for 15-20 minutes and working on set pieces. Not much we can do over here. Trying to get across to them the different game situations. We want to enjoy the tournament and not have any nervousness.”
Sunil Chettri and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu were also present at the Press Conference. Captain fantastic says that the team is in good shape and will give their best in the SAFF Championships.
“The team is upbeat, everyone knows each other and have got along well. There are youngsters who push us a lot and in the last 1-2 years we were not that good but now we’ll put our best foot forward.”
India are grouped along with Nepal, Bangladesh, Maldives and Sri Lanka in the 5-team tournament. India play Bangladesh on 4th October, 4:30 pm IST.