Stimac wants to keep foot on gas

Vinayak Padmadeo

Advertisement

New Delhi, July 7

Even after guiding the Indian men’s football team to back-to-back titles, coach Igor Stimac feels there is no time to “relax”.

India followed up their Intercontinental Cup title win by lifting the SAFF Championship trophy for the ninth time. Back home for a well-deserved rest, Croatian Stimac, though, wants to get back to preparing for the next challenges mainly the Asian Cup to be held early next year as soon as possible. “I will enjoy the next few days but then hard work needs to start again,” Stimac said. “If we want to go forward, we need to make sure we prepare for the upcoming challenges and there is no time to relax,” he added.

Though eager to get going, Stimac cannot yet lay out a plan for the future as he is still waiting for the Indian federation (AIFF) to announce next season’s calendar of the Indian Super League (ISL). “We cannot start planning without the ISL calendar. We know the FIFA dates (international window) but we have no clarity on the upcoming ISL season, which we depend on. We cannot start planning until we get the official confirmation about how many days we will get prior to these tournaments,” Stimac said.

Despite discussions with the AIFF top brass, Stimac is waiting for the official confirmation. “We did speak about it but until there is an official confirmation we cannot start planning,” he said. “We are sure that the FIFA window starts from September 4. Besides FIFA, we have the King’s Cup in Thailand and then the U-23 qualifiers, which would be taken care of by someone else. Then we will take over the U-23 boys for the Asian Games but we still do not know how much time we will get for preparation,” he added.

“Then the next FIFA window is in November with the World Cup qualifiers. So it is a huge challenge and if we don’t prepare well then we cannot expect great things,” he added.

India’s defence has become its strongest feature, with the team boasting of seven clean sheets in nine matches in the two tournaments. “It was obvious from the very beginning that we were working on stabilising the defence. The first signs of this were during the World Cup qualifiers (last year). Against Qatar (Asian champions), we gave away just one goal,” Stimac said.

“Now, apart from being solid in defence, we have attacking options. Over the last year, we have broken all the records with clean sheets, unbeaten games. We are undefeated at home for four years,” he added.