World Cup qualifiers camp begins

BANGALORE, MARCH 26. It's now the turn of the Indian football team to redeem itself what with Indian sport having got a boost. It all started with Vishwanathan Anand winning the World chess championship, followed by Abhinav Bindra's performance in shooting, Gopi Chand's All England triumph, the national hockey team downing arch-rival Pakistan to annex the Prime Minister's Gold Cup at Dhaka, the basketball team's win in the SAARC tournament at Guwahati and finally the cricket team's dominance of Australia have all left the sporting fraternity screaming for more.

It is under this backdrop that coach Sukhwinder Singh and his boys commenced the pre-World Cup qualifiers football camp at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre here on Monday morning. Barring star player Baichung Bhutia, expected to arrive on Tuesday from his engagements with Bury F.C., a Second Division side in England, the rest of the probables looked keyed up to take on the three other teams in Group 8 of the qualifying draw - UAE, Yemen and Brunei - in its home matches at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium.

Sukhwinder, reappointed after the sacking of Ukraine coach Islam Akhmedov after the disastrous Sahara Cup assignment in January, is quite optimistic. ``No team can take the other for granted at this level,'' he said.

About UAE Sukhwinder, who was coach when India last played against it, said, ``had a good side then and surely would have ironed out its chinks by now.''

Hardeep Sangha of JCT and Tapan Ghosh (Mahindra United) are ruled out of the probables list with serious injuries.

Sukhwinder has given himself and the players three- four days for relaxation and medical check-ups before starting up on set- pieces. The rigourous sessions will follow in the last few days.

India takes on UAE on April 8, Yemen on April 15 and Brunei (May 20).

The probables: Virender Singh, N. Balaji, Prasanta Dora, K.V. Dhanesh, Mahesh Gawli, Deepak Mondal, Robert Fernandes, Ratan Singh, Sur Kumar Singh, Jo Paul Ancheri, Khalid Jamil, Renedy Singh, R.P. Singh, Jules Alberto, S. Venkatesh, Noel Wilson, Baichung Bhutia, R.C. Prakash, Abdul Hakim, I.M. Vijayan, Alvito D'Cunha. Chief coach: Sukhwinder Singh. Technical Director: Krishnaji Rao. Goalkeeping coach: Brahmanand Shankwalkar.

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