India's football head coach Igor Stimac believes that the national team cannot expect success in tournaments like the Asian Cup as long as the top clubs in the country continue to lose to teams from Bangladesh and Maldives.
In his report submitted to the All India Football Federation (AIFF), Stimac described the national team's performance in the Asian Cup in Doha, where it suffered three losses, as ‘disappointing but not unexpected.’
"I'm truly realistic person ...and for now we should be happy and satisfied when continuously participating at the AFC Asian Cup. The reason for saying that is very simple and logical," Stimac wrote in his report.
"...how to expect our NT (national team) to do well while our best ISL teams are losing heavily in AFC Champion League and suffering defeats in AFC Cup club competitions against teams from Bangladesh and Maldives?"
The 56-year-old Stimac's observations are accurate, given that Indian clubs seldom progress to the knockout stages of continental-level tournaments.
He also noted that India were the sole country among the 24 participants in the Asian Cup without any players featuring in a major football league worldwide.
"How we can expect more from our boys if we had never in our history qualified for the Asian Cup in U18/U20/U23? If we are so much behind others in under age groups than qualifying with senior NT is already huge achievement," the experienced Croatian coach said.
Stimac also criticised the AIFF administration for failing to provide the necessary resources to enhance the national team, a practice commonly seen in other countries.
"Apart from Australia, South Korea and Japan (most of their players are playing in the best European leagues), all other participating teams had an average time of 27 days for preparation for the AFC Asian Cup. We had only 13 days," Stimac rued.
"We were the only team at the tournament without GPS equipment which made our job really difficult. Apart from that it affects the players when they see that basic training equipment is missing and we can't measure training effectiveness or neither prevent certain injuries."
He emphasised once again that the team suffered from the absence of Ashique Kuruniyan, Jeakson Singh, and Anwar Ali. Additionally, Sahal Abdul Samad, another crucial player, was only available for the last game against Syria.
"(They) were giving our team stability in all aspects of the game (physical, technical, tactical and mental). Not having them fully fit for such important tournament was irreplaceable loss.”
"Most of Bengaluru and Mohun Bagan players joined us after having terrible spell with their respective clubs prior to the AFC Asian Cup. Thinking of replacing so many of them for the Asian Cup with other ISL players was never an option."
Following a determined 0-2 loss against Australia in the opening match, Stimac was optimistic for a strong performance against Uzbekistan. However, he was dismayed by a 0-3 defeat.
"Our best game was against Australia, which wasn't (a) surprise because we prepared twice as long for that game as for the other two.
"The match against Uzbekistan was a big disappointment personally because I was expecting that good performance against Australia would boost our confidence and have more concrete effect on boys.
"Instead of raising up in our game we became vulnerable and let in cheap goals in a similar way to Qatar game. We knew that Uzbekistan is technically excellent team that mercilessly punishes mistakes.”
"We did face the problem few days prior to this game with Sandesh Jinghan suffering from fever and not feeling (well) which obviously had impact on his game."
He said that after the team allowed three first-half goals, he had to carefully select his words during the halftime break in the locker room to prevent a significant defeat.
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