Halicharan Narzary: Doesn’t matter who scores, as long as goals come
Halicharan Narzary has talked up India’s chances at the upcoming AFC Asian Cup next month as he puts the team’s goals ahead of his own. Narzary further revealed that the Indian team has their target set on making it to the knockout stages of the Asian showpiece which will be played in the UAE.
The Indian football team, under the leadership of British coach Stephen Constantine, are in their final stage of preparation ahead of next month’s AFC Asian Cup which will be played in the UAE. The men in blue played out a goalless 0-0 draw last week to higher-ranked Oman, in a match that was played behind closed doors.
Indian winger, Halicharan Narzary, has set his sights on scoring a goal or two if he gets a chance to don the national jersey in the upcoming football event. However, the
"As long as the goals come, it does not matter who scores. Obviously, I have not scored that many goals in the India shirt. That motivates me to work harder, and improve my scoring abilities.
"It's up to me to work hard, improve myself, and prove to the coach that I deserved to be in that list of 23. Now that he has selected me, I aim to score a couple of goals in the tournament. Of course, qualifying for the round of 16 is of paramount importance," Narzary said in an interview with TOI.
India will go up against Thailand, Bahrain and hosts United Arab Emirates in Group A. They open their campaign against Thailand here on January 6 before facing UAE (January 10) and Bahrain (January 14).
"I feel that the match against UAE will be the toughest. They are the hosts, and it is always difficult to play against a home team in a big competition. The crowd will be like the 12th man for them, so we will have to work even harder, in order to get a good result," Narzary added.
Narzary, who plays for Kerala Blasters FC in the ISL, spoke about how he had to struggle in his childhood days to play the game.
"I had a really difficult time when I was a kid. I had to struggle a lot back then. But it gives me immense satisfaction where I have reached now, after all the hard work. My family also helped me a lot during those days. I would not have been what I was, had it not been for them.
"I'm not someone who belongs to an affluent family. My parents had to struggle to make ends meet. Playing football professionally was a distant dream for me at that time. Let alone playing football, even owning a proper football boot was a far-fetched dream for me during my childhood," he added.
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