Captained by the talismanic Sunil Chhetri, the Indian men’s football team have qualified for the 2023 Asian Cup after Palestine defeated Philippines 4-0 on Tuesday. India plays Hong Kong later in the evening on the same day, with top spot in Group D up for grabs.
India is assured qualification to the Asian Cup as one of the best second placed teams in the round. The table toppers of all the six groups go through, and the five best second placed teams will also progress.
A total of 11 teams go up to the Asian Cup from this round of qualifiers. 13 teams have already qualified before this.
India is tied on points (6) with Hong Kong but find themselves second on the points table as they have an inferior goal difference (+3) compared to Hong Kong who have a +4 goal difference.
This will be India’s fifth appearance at the Asian Cup. 2023 is also the first time that India have secured qualification in back-to-back editions of the tournament. India failed to progress from the group stage in 2019 despite a solid win against Thailand to kick start the tournament.
So far in the qualifiers India have played Cambodia and Afghanistan, winning 2-0 and 2-1, respectively. Sunil Chhetri has scored 3 of the 4 goals while Sahal Abdul Samad scored the winner in the second match. All of Group D’s games are being played in Kolkata at the Vivekananda Yuva Bharati Stadium in Salt Lake.
37-year-old Chhetri, who has scored 83 international goals so far, may well be playing his final major tournament when the Asian Cup comes around.
Led by Chuni Goswami, in 1964, India had finished runners-up in a 4-team tournament played in Israel. In 1984, 2011 and 2019, India failed to progress from the group stages. In 2019, the Asian Cup was also expanded from 16 teams to 24.
India’s last trophy at the Asian level came in 1974 when they were joint champions with Iran at the Asian Youth Football Tournament held at Bangkok. India were captained by the legendary forward Shabbir Ali.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)