Months after the jubiliant India U-23 squad returned from SAFF Championships in Dhaka, the AIFF is now the U-19 team to represent India in the South Asian Games. Coached by Colin Toal the colts had a month long preparatory camp in Kalyani, West Bengal.
The tournament shall start from the 29th of January and go on till the 8th of February. India is placed with Afghanistan and Sri Lanka in their group. Afghanistan will be the first opponent for the boys in blues on the 29th.
The Indian team will be boosted by the presence of few players from the India U-23 SAFF Cup winning team namely striker Jeje Lalpeklua from Pune FC and Lalrindika Ralte from Churchill Brothers.
Goal.com caught up with India U-19 and newly signed East Bengal goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu.
Throwing lights on the team’s preparation Gurpreet said, “We had an intense conditioning camp at Kalyani for the past three weeks. We used to have two training sessions daily followed by gym and tactical classes with Colin Sir. “
As usual the Indian side will be the youngest participants in this tournament as other participants are sending their U-23 teams along with some senior team members. Sharing his views on the team’s age factor Gurpreet exclaimed, “Earlier a similar situation came when the U-23 team was sent and we have seen the results. Even this time we are hoping for a similar achievement. More than the age what matters is our team spirit. I believe we have what it takes to win the tournament.”
INDIA U-19 Squad
Goalkeepers: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, Jagroop Singh
Defenders: Vishal Kumar Ravindra Kumar, Abhishek Das, Inderpreet Singh, Deepak Devrani, Raju Eknath Gaikwad, Shouvik Ghosh and Lalrozama
Midfielders: Akshay Kumar Mall, Subodh Kumar, Milan Singh Ongnam, Jewel Raja Sheikh, Lalrindika Ralte and Tirthankar Sarkar
Strikers: Jeje Lalpekhlua, Manandeep Singh, Jagtar Singh, Malswamfela and Bikramjit Singh.
Colin Toal (Coach)
Original Article Published on goal.com
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Friday 29 January 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.
Comments · 2
The strikers are great. But the defence is distraught. We were completely exposed during the AFC U19 Qualifiers.
The addition of Raju Eknath, Jewel Raja and Jagtar Singh will definitely strengthen the team.
Other players worth a look-in from the same age-group are Jibon Singh, Malsawmkima Changte and Subhash Singh (all EB), Boithang Haokip (Lajong), Thoi Singh (Mahindra), Pradeep Mohanraj, Hiralal Chetri, John Coutinho, Salil Usman and Nihal Chandran (all Mumbai FC), Poirei Angama (GK-Pune), Shahinlal Meloly (GK-Viva), et al.
Good Luck Junior India!
Salil Usman is an elegant player with loads of potential from the Mumbai FC U-19's. Having represented India in the AIFF tour to germany, this boy can bring in some vital experience to the team.