Physio receives ‘shock invite’ to help Indian football team
Nicos Zeniou, a private physiotherapist based in Limassol, Cyprus, has helped to treat and prevent injuries among the squad as they attempt to qualify for the 2019 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup.
He was invited to support the team by their head coach Stephen Constantine, who he had met 20 years ago while he was working as the lead physiotherapist for Cyprus’s national football team.
Football has been more than a sport for India's north-east region; it has given its people - ethnically distinct, economically neglected and culturally alienated from the national mainstream - an identity. And now, with Aizawl's stunning success in the I-League, it offers to the rest of India a lesson in how to build the sport from the grassroots.
Vijay Goel wants football to overtake 'craze for cricket' in India
New Delhi: Youngsters should take to football so much that it beats the craze for cricket in the country, Union sports minister Vijay Goel said on Wednesday.
The minister was speaking at the closing ceremony of the 'Oorja- CAPFs U-19 football talent hunt tournament phase-I' for the Delhi region organised by paramilitary CISF at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium.
FIFA U-17 World Cup: Full schedule for India Under-17s’ Italian tour
The Indian Under-17 team is currently on an exposure trip to Europe. Luis Norton de Matos’ charges have ended their short stay in Portugal and will head to Italy later this month to participate in the Lazio Cup, a prestigious age group tournament organised by the Serie A club, Lazio.The tournament kicks off on the 23rd of May and will run for five days culminating in the final on 28th May. The Indian Under-17 team are among the 16 participating teams, which comprise national teams as well as club teams, all of them Under-17s.
Constantine announces list of India probables ahead of national camp
The Indian National Team will be camping in Mumbai at the Andheri Sports Complex from May 20, 2017, to prepare for India’s forthcoming AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 qualifying match against the Kyrgyz Republic which is slated to be played in Bengaluru on June 13, 2017.The list of 35 probables that National Coach Stephen Constantine announced on Saturday (May 13, 2017) also includes eight U-22 players, all of whom would go through a rigorous training process to claim their spot in the final 23.
INDIA'S FRIENDLY WITH LEBANON CANCELLED OVER VISA TROUBLE
India's preparations for the 2019 AFC Asian Cup qualifiers has been dealt a blow after Lebanon decided to pull out of a friendly scheduled on June 7th, six days before the Blue Tigers were set to play Kyrgyz Republic in an Asian Cup qualifiers' group game.
The friendly against Lebanon, who are currently ranked 137th in the world, was supposed to be held at the Andheri Sports Complex in Mumbai where the Indian team is set to start a preparation camp from May 20th.
The Indian U-17 football team played out a 1-1 draw against French club FC Saint Leu here on Wednesday.
The match against the second division side of the Paris League was part of the exposure trip of Europe for the Indian boys who will take part in the U-17 World Cup in India later this year.
India to take on Nepal after match against Lebanon called off
NEW DELHI: India will take on Nepal in an international friendly match at Mumbai on 6th June, 2017 after India’s match against Lebanon has been canceled yesterday due to visa problems of the Lebanese players.
India supposed to play Lebanon on 7th June as a part of their preparations for second AFC Asian Cup qualifier against Kyrgyzstan.
However, the match was officially called off by the Lebanese FA after they failed to apply for entry visas for the team at the Indian Embassy in Beirut, as the majority of their national team players are playing abroad with their respective clubs and it was not possible for them to come to Lebanon to apply for their visas.
India is not a country usually associated with football headlines. But while the majority of Asian teams remained inactive, the world's second most populous nation moved up a place up in May's FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking to 100. Despite the slightest of moves, they are one of only two teams from their continent that gained ground in the past month - the other being Jordan, who made an identical single-point move to 109.
All the more significant is the fact that the Indians reached a century in the global pecking order for the first time in over two decades. India has twice previously stormed into the top one hundred on the world ladder. They reached 99 in the world ranking's inaugural year in 1993, before achieving an all-time high of 94 in February 1996. But the next two decades saw the South Asians in a downward spiral, slipping all the way to their lowest ebb of 173 in March 2015.
