 campaign at the 47th Kings Cup has ended with a victory for a change. We've beaten Thailand 1-0 at home in Buriram. Unfortunately the tournament has concluded without us being there but we are still reviewing it. We're still looking at all the highlights from today's game as well as an overall recap of how speedmatch has done in his first sort of overseas trip with the Indian national men's football team. Ajahn Pandit is with us. He's from coming to us directly from the sets of one of the most successful soap operas in the history of this nation. We will not mention which one. How is the game guys? Fun victory? Not a fun victory but a victory. Where do you get the expectations from? From the second half of the last game. No sir, you've defeated Thailand. You've kept a clean sheet against Thailand. This is not a friendly encounter. This is a third and fourth encounter. There is some value in this game. I think this is a very big win. You may not have liked the gameplay so much or whatever you didn't like. Fair enough. But you've won this game with Sunil Chhetri. You've won this game with 5-6 first team players. That in itself is a huge victory and that shows you how good the supply line of Indian football is. Something we wouldn't have said 7-8 months or a year back. We would have probably not said that because whenever we were talking Indian football, whenever we were seeing the boys come out and play, it was that same set of 12-13 players. But in these two matches, you clearly saw that you have at least 18-19 players. You can compete at the same level for those starting 11 positions. Since you are talking about the players, I want to ask both of you guys. Your top picks, let's say three players that you think stood out the most for India. We are not getting into too much analysis of the opposition. Over the course of the tournament? No, this game to start with. This game to start with Adil Khan obviously. He's the man of the match by far. He's got a lot of crucial intercepts. Should have had two assists. Had a lot of interceptions, last-ditch tackles and combined very well. Worked very well with Jingan. Also, I think it's a great arc for him to have completed in terms of his professional career. Just four years back, he had a really bad injury. Went through a torrid time, came back first appearance for the Indian team in this long period and he's captured off with a superb performance. Full marks to him, he's definitely the pick for the man of the match. I can see that maybe some people would want to give it a thapa, but I would pick Adil. Yeah, I totally agree with Beber when the fact that man of the match, I don't know, but I am firstly so happy for Adil. Purely because of what Beber mentioned right now, because it is not easy to come back from injury. Then on top of that, he's gone through two or three seasons of the ISL where everyone who's involved with the ISL, who's watching the game, who's talking about the game, is saying that this man has not been invited to India camp. Now, you think that he's not saying anything, but when you're hearing so many people talk about it, that in itself can demotivate you. That means you're playing goal, you're playing defender, you're playing midfield, and your name is not in the India call-up. You might be earning some decent money for whichever club you're playing in the ISL, but if you're not getting selected for the Indian team, that in itself is a major, major demotivator, if I may say. It's not, you know, going forward. I don't know what that, I didn't get the right word, but demotivator is a good word, right? Sounds like a profession. What do you do? I'm a demotivator. No, so also Adil, the thing is that as soon as you saw him play today, straight away he sat into that position, something that didn't come across in the first game versus Kurosawa, and straight away there was some telepathic understanding between Sandesh and Adil. And the best part about Adil is, why I say that he can sort of replace someone like Ananas, is because he has an Ananas-like quality that is to throw himself in the line of the ball. He's not bothered about, what I'm going to get hurt, what's going to happen to me. He'll go in to defend that ball, right? Now, of course, tactically, he'll have to build an understanding with Sandesh and that will only come over time. Remember, this is the first game that these two guys are playing a stop-up back. Adil started out his career as a midfielder, by the way, right? So now he's been brought back into defense, so it will take time, so that was a major positive. But if you look back at some of the players that have really stood out for India over the course of these two games, then it would have to be the boys from the midfield there. One is Amarjeet, the 17-year-old boy, the under-17 boy, and I'll put my hand up. I think Annie, you will also agree. From that under-17 team, if we thought we had to pick one player who would break into the senior Indian team, neither of us would have taken his name. Yeah, I would have been Boris. Would have been Boris, would have been Komal Thattal, would have been Anikeh Jadav. Amarjeet Kiam would have not been on our list, right? So full respect and credit to the coach that he has seen something in this guy in 10 days. He has seen something in this guy in 10 days and he played a little bit in the first game. And he was so impressed in the first game that he started the game in the second game. Now that boy, he has become very clever. And I can understand why. He does the basics very... He's very good at doing the basics correct. And that's why I call him a very intelligent player. Now an intelligent player is not just one who can see the gaps and who can open the game, who can do some skill. An intelligent player is who knows where to run off the ball. Of his position. Who knows how to make himself available to his players. And once he gets the ball, I don't think he makes too many mistakes because he has a very simple game. One touch, second touch release. So that is one player who can be developed going forward. You give him 10 games in the year 2019 and you probably have a solid central midfielder than going forward. So we were talking about the central midfield or the midfield in general and the average age of this midfield and except if you remove Jackie from the equation who came in late into the game you have Amarjeet who is 20 you have Thaba who is 20, 21 you have Sahel who is another youngster Vinitraya Pranay is not old by any stretch. Vinitraya 22. Who also did a very good job by the way right in front of the defence today. Brandon all these guys Rainier man A very young set of players that can really be groomed into something special in the sense of course in terms of perhaps their technical abilities they are not going to improve by leaps and bounds but at least like you are saying awareness your tactical understanding of the game your telepathy with your teammates and how you work I think there is plenty of potential here to plenty of things to be at least somewhat excited about. I still think like that enforcer role the ball winning midfielder that's a bit more problematic but at least from the looks of it these guys the way they are and Thapa man for me has consistently been one of the solid performers you know like he had he also gets in there defensively yeah today he had that clearance of the line that might have been an equalizer for Thailand and he is always there when he is always covering he is always there in those pieces cutting off the lanes trying to intercept and moving forward and going forward of course so he has good vision so actually off the ball running I think that's where up front there isn't enough happening that's one big drawback for the team over this game definitely because there was no Sunil playing this game and we started with Balwant and Faruk Faruk Chaudhary and I didn't think that they offered much in terms of going up front in fact in the live vlog at also at a certain point I just had this little observation where I felt that in the game against Thailand in the Asian Cup Ashik was playing and he was constantly pressing Thailand so high up the pitch that he was making their defense really nervous and we were winning the ball like areas where we could just quickly break them down so maybe I felt like I don't know if you guys agree and you could tell me how you feel about this but one of the sort of slight drawbacks of this game plan was having no pace in the side even though you are essentially playing what is the counter attacking system that's what happened in that one where Adil should have had the second basically cleared the ball long it should have been a one-on-one chance between our striker who is Faruk and the Thai goalkeeper but Faruk didn't have the legs to make it a one-on-one situation I also feel like the ground was a bit slow that by that reason If you are moving ahead and you are talking about the Indian team and you are saying which is your strongest Indian team going into the Intercontinental Cup hopefully then Ashik Kurunyan should be back I don't know the extent of his injury but if Ashik comes back if Sunil is back and then you have these young boys running the midfield you said 20, 21, 22 you forgot Brandon Fernandez as well who is not, I don't know how old is he I think 23, 24, he is that age or 25 now the good thing with these young boys is that they move the ball a lot quicker as well get that and as a result that transition from midfield to attack is also a lot faster a couple of the untouched play, the triangles these guys were creating that was so much better because they give the ball and they move ahead to of course straight away to make space to ask the next ball again yeah I think a better judge of what the Indian team will look like what we are going to play like and what the next steps are is probably going to be made at the Intercontinental Cup because Steema just put out two 11s which are completely different personnel and I mean I don't know what you guys but I cannot get a hold on what kind of game he wants to play I wouldn't want to second guess him we had said like Parnath had said when we did the last show we should give we shouldn't really try and agree, we shouldn't second guess him there is no need to do that when you are watching the game the commentators apparently understood a great deal about Steema's philosophy from watching these two games I didn't have any such understanding I think like you had said we should wait till the end of the Intercontinental Cup I think we will know what kind of football he wants to play now he is just getting a feel of players and how they react in that competitive situation and how they react to each other in the same way absolutely I mean he is basically just trying to figure out his first 11 right now essentially fair enough but today we have to see that if we have a team who cannot physically enforce them on us something like what a curse out it and then we are a lot more in this game right we hold the ball a lot more and we can even cover space a lot more we can even mark a lot better something that was not happening in Kurosawa we were always a step or two behind the Kurosawa players today versus Thailand they were not finding that much space as well yes their crossing and their set pieces were very good and you know because of that they didn't score so you have to say their finishing was really poor India was a lot more compact as opposed to what they were versus Kurosawa so you got a good reaction in the second game yeah definitely I think they were not able to stretch us or stretch the game as much as Kurosawa did to find those things I think their best chances came right at the end of the game in perhaps injury time when they had a couple of those close misses a couple of headers or something so yeah and speaking of the misses I mean I didn't really see through the 90 minutes any clear cut chances for Thailand which absolutely should have been a goal there was whatever close chances of like you said crosses and set pieces that did materialize for me they came from communication mistakes between either the goalkeeper and his defense or from slightly poor decision making in terms of when to come off your line and when to commit to going for that aerial ball on the goalkeeper's part do you guys agree that this communication issue is something that is persisting and needs to work but you are talking about communication communication if we show our telepathy even though we know each other from so many schools but it takes time to show and to build up that telepathy the same thing is on the field and Amarinder might be used to doing something different at Mumbai City FC as opposed to now working with a Jinger Dil Khan who played for two completely different clubs he might be training with them but when you start with them in a game he takes time you have to give him time and I also think that he makes up for a lot of I mean this is not the best defense of someone who is making bad decisions but I would say that his athleticism makes up for a lot of the errors that perhaps his decision making puts him into the game today he came out today perhaps ill-timed but then when he came out he realised that he was not going to make the ball so he would rather be better off blocking the header and he got close enough to put his body in the way for that so that shows a certain amount of and I think that when we talk about goalkeepers making bad decisions again Arjun is right because defenders playing in front of the goalkeeper sets of defenders play in different ways some of them like to drop back really deep and pick the ball off and head it out some of them like to leave the goalkeeper a certain amount of space so I think to take command of the area you need to have a certain amount of but fair enough time will take yeah I think I don't think Gurtry's performance in the first game was so outstanding he's convinced that he's the automatic number one that's a good thing there should always be that it's always nice to have for every position I think the number one spot the goalkeeper spot is critical because of the kind of influence that that person needs to have and especially for India when we play competitive fixtures the keeper is a central figure in our system so if you boys have nothing to add on that note just very quickly if there is one big problem coming out of the Kings Cup it's the striking department I don't think that the goal is gone we can just do a quick recap the goal is gone any young players that might be sort of groomed to fill in that spot in the next few years there is something in Manveer saying because Constantine was backing him now Steve matches come in and he's also played him so clearly there is something in him you haven't seen much of him in the ISL because he's even FC Goa when they use Manveer Singh they use him because you've got Koro of course in that position but my point is if you have 2 ready made strikers but behind that Balwant Singh I don't think he's giving a goal scoring option to be Justin I mean I know that Steemash didn't pick him I've seen him at the international level whatever you've seen him do is do for East Bengal there is a difference in the ground no sure but I mean you can groom him maybe at the top level why not why not expect the coach to actually be able to influence him how much will he influence how much time will he tell we'll have to see I do think I do think he'll get a chance to show us what he's got at some point in the near future maybe if not in the intercontinental cup then in the qualifiers at some point I'm sure if once the season also starts to get underway and players at a better level of fitness they've had some time to recover so remember it's been a very long season for these players been added for a long time the striker issue is something that we'll take up in greater detail I think we can do a separate show on it Indian club system and how the foreign players that Indian clubs tend to buy are always in these critical positions and that has a sort of knockdown effect on the development of Indian players but we'll do that on a separate occasion let's wind this up for now Parnit enjoy your time with ESPN do good win us the World Cup and we'll see you back on our when you do finish painting all the windows behind you let us know now that the tea is coming there's a break that's why I'm here I'm going to edit it to that tournament and we'll be covering all the big stories from the women's World Cup so stay tuned for the next episode of 420 grams which will deal with some of those stories until then, Shabba Hair