The Indian men's national football team started their preparatory camp in Pune for the upcoming friendlies against Bahrain (March 23) and Belarus (March 26). Speaking to the press on Monday, head coach Igor Stimac has touched upon various aspects surrounding the team, including the form of first choice goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu while praising the likes of Sahal Abdul Samad and VP Suhair.
Here are the key highlights:
On Sahal's ISL form:
Stimac reckons Sahal's impact for Kerala Blasters this season is certainly good news for the national team. He also thanked Blasters' head coach for bringing out the best out of Sahal.
"If I say I have a few favourite players, he (Sahal) would be one of them. He's one of the players who everyone loves to watch. Finally, he's having a great season," Stimac said. "I'm very thankful to Ivan (Vukomanović) who did a wonderful job with the Kerala Blasters this season. They are performing well, playing without fear and playing with great energy with middle and high press. Sahal's understanding with the foreign players is amazing. It's great to see him scoring and assisting goals. It's also wonderful for us -- the national team."
On Indian goalkeepers in the ISL:
This season of Indian Super League (ISL) saw quite a few silly errors from goalkeepers. Stimac took notice of the fact that even the experienced ones like Gurpreet (just three clean sheets from 15 matches) didn't have the best of seasons.
"I already spoke to Gurpreet, and he's well aware that his performance in this season hasn't been as good as the seasons before. But Gurpreet is one of the best goalkeepers in Asia and we are already working to bring him back to his top form," Stimac said.
"I mean apart from the young Prabhsukhan Singh Gill (Kerala Blasters), all the Indian goalkeepers had a nightmare season. There were many unnecessary mistakes but that's part of football. I never blame the goalkeeper but some goals conceded this year were funny. But that's part of football," Stimac added.
Whether Suhair will get a match:
NorthEast United finished tenth this season but Suhair has been one of the consistent performers in the team. Apart from his goal-scoring abilities, what makes Suhair really valuable is his work rate on and off the ball. Stimac pointed out the importance of having somebody like him in the squad.
"He has been very consistent in the last two years, scoring some important goals for his team although they didn't perform well this season. Individually, he was giving everything. He was working very hard defensively and he was always looking to create problems for the opposition.
"And looking at him in the last couple days in the training sessions, he has such an easy manner to put the ball in the net. Yesterday we played a nice, little game and he scored four goals. He's one of the players who knows how to put the ball behind the goalkeeper which is very important for us. With Sunil (Chhetri) not being here, he will definitely get his minutes on the pitch."
On the team's plan for upcoming games:
Stimac is pleased to see new players making their way into the squad but he's not entirely sure about their ability to perform at the highest level.
"We want to have a closer look at some of the new faces in the squad. It's very important for me to find out how well they can do on the international stage. As I mentioned many times, the pace of the ISL is far below the pace of international football. And sometimes we are impressed with a few players in the ISL but when it comes to international football, they couldn't be of much help. We want to be sure about their quality, how much they could do at this stage."