Igor Stimac hints at including overseas citizens in Indian football team

Indian football team recently suffered its worst loss in more than 10 years, having been humbled by UAE 6-0 in their friendly a few days ago. The result sent shock waves across the entire football fraternity with questions also asked about the capability of their Croat manager Igor Stimac, ahead of the remaining 2022 FIFA World Cup Qualifiers that will take place in June.

In reply, the manager has stated that their performances in the World Cup Qualifiers are better than the previous campaign and they are well on course to book a berth in the 2023 AFC Asian Cup. Along with that, he also hinted at including overseas citizens as done by some of the other Asian countries.

“Sometimes I get the impression that we have too much opinion of ourselves when it comes to opponents like Afghanistan or Bangladesh. Let me remind you that Afghanistan has allowed Overseas Citizen players to play for the national team,” said Igor Stimac, as reported by AIFF.

“They now have 13 players coming from European leagues. They are competing in Germany, Poland, Finland, the Netherlands, and Sweden. They also have two players playing in Australian clubs, and one player in the USA top division,” added the manager.

India will be up against Qatar (3rd June), Bangladesh (7th June), and Afghanistan (15th June) in the remaining matches in the qualifiers with all of them set to be played at a centralised venue, in Qatar.