India to focus on Asian qualifier in Hong Kong

The 0–2 loss against Thailand was somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow for the Blue Tigers at the Thammasat Stadium in Thailand on Wednesday

Hyderabad: The 0–2 loss against Thailand was somewhat of a bitter pill to swallow for the Blue Tigers at the Thammasat Stadium in Thailand on Wednesday.

However, the show must go on — that’s the gut feeling of the Indian team.

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Regardless of the result against Thailand, the Blue Tigers now shift their focus to the task at hand: their AFC Asian Cup Saudi Arabia 2027 Final Round Qualifier against Hong Kong, China, on June 10.

The senior India men’s national team, who had travelled to Thailand with a 28-member squad, will now shift base to Hong Kong five days prior to their Asian qualifier with a 25-man squad — sans goalkeeper Hrithik Tiwari, centre-back Mehtab Singh, and full-back Subhasish Bose, who will travel back to India directly from Thailand. Bose was ruled out of the match against Thailand as well due to an injury.

The reality is that when you don’t score, especially the clear chances that we had, usually you lose the game,” said Márquez. “Thailand have very good players, and if you don’t take your chances against them, it will be difficult,” Indian head coach Manolo Márquez said on the Thailand result.

With five days to go for their Asian qualifier against Hong Kong, Márquez is now looking ahead to making last-minute adjustments before the Blue Tigers take the field.“You can always perform better than you did previously. There is no improvement without self-criticism. I feel that we can obviously play better, but physicality is one aspect that we miss out on in Indian football.

“It was very similar in our match against Vietnam (1–1) last year. We had equalised because we scored from the chance that we got,” he said. “We had more chances against Thailand, but if you don’t score, the other team generally tends to score more than you.”

“There were negatives, and it’s now up to us to go back to the video room, watch the clips, and try to improve from there. The main game is against Hong Kong, and I think it’s good that we got to play a quality team like Thailand before that. This game was a good exercise for us,” said Indian captain Sandesh Jhingan.

The Blue Tigers will reach Hong Kong on Thursday, June 5, in the evening and begin training on Friday.