Intercontinental Football Cup 2019 fixture list announced
The Indian football team will start their Intercontinental Cup campaign on July 7 against Tajikistan in Ahmedabad where all the fixtures for the tournament will be played. Three other teams will be competing for the trophy apart from defending champions India with the final to be held on July 18th.
After a decent first outing with new manager Igor Stimac, the Indian football team will soon be in action again when they participate in the Intercontinental Cup scheduled to be held on home soil almost a month from now.
Having organized the tournament last year too in Mumbai in a bid to prepare for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup, India had ended the competition as champions after defeating Kenya 2-0 in the final, with New Zealand, and Chinese Taipei being the other two participating teams.
This time, the other teams will include Tajikistan, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and Syria. While the first two teams are ranked below the 101st ranked India at 120 and 121 respectively, Syria would enter the tournament as the highest ranked team being recognized by FIFA to be 83rd in the global rankings.
The tournament will follow a round-robin format with each team playing a match against the other competitors and the top two teams in the table qualifying for the final, much like last year.
Igor Stimac will be looking to make a better impact after failing to have much success in the King’s Cup where they lost in the first round to Curacao though they put in quite a performance. However, they did manage to win against Thailand to finish as the bronze medalist. With all matches to be held on home soil at the EKA Arena in Ahmedabad, the coach will be banking on strong local support to lift the trophy.