New Delhi: In the next three weeks, Colin Joseph Toal and his wards in the national under-16 team will have a chance to create history in Indian football.
On Wednesday, the team will fly out to Uzbekistan to play the final rounds of the Asian championships. A place among the first three teams in that tournament will guarantee India a berth in the next under-17 World Cup in Nigeria in 2009.
Toal, the technical director of the team for the past one year, did not rule out India’s chances of making the semi-finals and said his team was capable of beating any team in the world.
“At the under-16 level, no team should be judged on the basis of the Fifa rankings of their senior squad,” Toal said from the team’s training centre in Goa. “In our group, we are pitted against South Korea, Syria and Indonesia and I believe we can beat all of them.”
India are in Group B and will play South Korea in the opener on October 4, followed by Syria (October 6) and Indonesia (October 8).
The first two teams in the group will qualify for the quarter finals to be played on October 12.
In the qualifiers last year, India had an incredible run and scored 18 goals in five matches that included a 2-2 draw against mighty Iraq and identical 3-0 wins over Lebanon and hosts Saudi Arabia.
Toal said he was not too excited about the prospect of qualifying for the World Cup for the first time.
Source:TelegraphIndia
On Wednesday, the team will fly out to Uzbekistan to play the final rounds of the Asian championships. A place among the first three teams in that tournament will guarantee India a berth in the next under-17 World Cup in Nigeria in 2009.
Toal, the technical director of the team for the past one year, did not rule out India’s chances of making the semi-finals and said his team was capable of beating any team in the world.
“At the under-16 level, no team should be judged on the basis of the Fifa rankings of their senior squad,” Toal said from the team’s training centre in Goa. “In our group, we are pitted against South Korea, Syria and Indonesia and I believe we can beat all of them.”
India are in Group B and will play South Korea in the opener on October 4, followed by Syria (October 6) and Indonesia (October 8).
The first two teams in the group will qualify for the quarter finals to be played on October 12.
In the qualifiers last year, India had an incredible run and scored 18 goals in five matches that included a 2-2 draw against mighty Iraq and identical 3-0 wins over Lebanon and hosts Saudi Arabia.
Toal said he was not too excited about the prospect of qualifying for the World Cup for the first time.
Source:TelegraphIndia
