 So and welcome to a brand new episode of 420grams here on newslink.in We've been out for a while because Bebo's been having some hard nights and Mr. Pandit is on a hard deadline. Hard nights? Hard deadline. Look at your face bro. That's just a bad looking face, what are you looking at? What do you mean by hard nights? Heavy nights. Heavy nights. Putting in burning the midnight oil. And Mr. Pandit is on a December 31st deadline so he's trying to get it all done by then. But we're back and India is back in four days time when we play Afghanistan in the next World Cup qualifier as well which also works for the Asian Cup 2023. We have a new friend on the show, Sports KPI which we'll actually formally introduce as our stats and analysis partners from the next episode. But we have some inputs from them that we will start to put to you guys from this show onwards. We're essentially looking back at how the under 19 Indian men's team did in the Asian Cup, the AFC qualifiers over the past week and we're looking ahead to the World Cup qualifier. Arjun Pandit is in the studio so is Bebo Pragnandan as we said. Let's get right in it guys. Do you want to start with the under 19 boys and how they did or do you want to talk about the national team first and then work our way back? I think under 19 bhai because teen games dekhne kumile hain. Aur I know bura lage na lage pite hain. I don't want to talk about them. Sir, boh pite hain. You don't want to talk at all. I honestly and I know the level of competition was different from what the under 16s did where they, you know, they're thrammed everyone in front of them. Uzbekistan koi choti teen ne. Sir, they're in the top three of Asia. Saudi Arabia, of course. Arab kumole na alat. Saudi Arabia again, top two. And then who Afghanistan is the one jo mere ko betne rahe hain. And which is what I don't understand man. Under 16 se jake hum under 19 pe wo 2 saal ka jo gap aat hain us ma kya ho jata hain. I really don't get it because you had a lot of, you had Narendra Roos playing, Narendra Gelot coming in with senior team experience. You got a lot of these boys who are playing iLeague, ISL football. And they're getting regular football, I think a lot of them. Maybe not regular, but they're Indian Arrows, so they know what top flight football is all about. And... Well, it's something that we can talk about because the Arrows project, how it is, and what it's going to be also going forward is something that's in doubt now with the whole roadmap for the league. So we can get into that, but overall what did you make of the performance, whatever games you guys watched, off the under 19 team, what did you make of the overall performance? Because I thought there was a, I mean the problems or the issues. Wahi the jo national team ke sa dote hain. Carry forward ho rahe hain. Lack of cohesion, defensive organization. Under 16 we ka tha hain sa? Under 16 ki baati hain. So that's what I'm saying, carry forward, what has changed here suddenly? That's my point. So this guy, under 16 or suddenly you plucked them up when they're 17 years old or 16 years old. These are the boys of the system. Yes, they've been playing for a long time. That's why I can't understand it. They've played some of the World Cup games. And senior, like you said, they've played for the senior team too. Understand it, even I can't understand it to be fair. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. That's our show. That's a wrap. No, no, I mean, I suppose many issues, man. Principle among them, I guess, is the preparation that the teams get. Because when you look at the shift from under 16 to under 19, that's essentially a crucial shift. If you look at the United, sorry, the city Liverpool game over this weekend, you look at the Champions League football over the past weekend, or how teams are made up in any of the top leagues in the world. Arsenal, a club that's popular with players. I really love the Arsenal in Chile. I love the team. Amazing, yeah. So, by the time players are... Pause for laughter. Long live local tournaments. Yeah, but I hope they do. So, as far as these so-called major teams are concerned, or world teams are concerned, until you're 18, 19, 20 years old, you're playing at the top level. Okay, if you Google top young players, you will find lists and lists and lists. You look at the latest version of football manager, players, teenage players and the valuations that they have are immense. Here, we have a situation where we are not being able to provide that transitional phase, where by the age of 18, 19, they are already prepared for the rigours and the difficulties of top-flight football. Case and point being Narender Gailot being a national team player, but he's not getting regular playing time. Not just a national team player, but if you look at the stats and the availability of players, he's among the top three guys to place central defence for the Indian senior team. With the surgery that Sandesh has gone through, Adil potentially being out with a hamstring injury. And the general lack of central defenders. He doesn't turn up for his club. He's not playing that much, yeah. See, I feel truth be told, I didn't see every game. I saw it in bits and pieces. And the one glaring thing that I saw was that there was a lack of potency in front of goal, which was not there to be seen in the under-16s. Under-16s, I mean, they were scoring goals for fun. There was a guy, I forgot his name, and there were two boys. No, there was Rohit Danu at the under-16 level. But Rohit Danu was at Sridharth, then there was Shubhopal. Shubhopal, yeah. So, yeah, these guys who were doing well at the... No, Rohit Danu was under-19. He's not at the under-16 level, but Rohit Danu was not part of this AFC qualifier thing because of some injury. I'm just saying the other guy didn't seem like there was any potency in front of goal. It didn't feel like you were playing a game, and there was something there that you couldn't see. Which is why I was alarmed because the same when you see the under-16s, they were controlling, they were building it up, then they had an avenue of either someone is breaking in or someone's coming in from the wing, and you had two guys inside, one guy going from the left, the attack is from the right, and so on and so forth. The same thing was just non-existent in the under-19s. And again, I'm going to put it out there. The quality of the opposition they were facing was top quality. This is world-class quality they were facing. The under-19 Uzbeki team, they always seemed a step ahead, and I'm not saying it's the team's fault. So their development is the same, that their touch, their movement, for the second ball, they always took one step ahead. In the under-16s, we were looking for that team. And if we weren't looking, we were clinical, we were finishing, so we were hitting goals, whatever we were doing. So I don't know, I don't know how... Uzbekistan were in the finals of the Asian Games, where they had gone with their under-21 squad and they lost to South Korea in the finals. Pretty high quality. Essentially the Asian Games, it's an under-23 tournament. And also, I was watching the games and against both Afghanistan and Saudi, the goals that India conceded on counter-attacks, whether it's an deep counter, there are times when they've lost the ball at the edge of their own box. Three passes, four passes, and there's a goal on the other end. Liverpool, yeah. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, so obviously there's an understanding, awareness, a situation, sort of, on the ball-ness that we don't have. When you look at India still, even at under-19 level, there's confusion, there are players converging on the ball. Three guys converging on the ball when there's no real need to. Or the defence going to sleep. I mean, you can't have the ball in the opposition half, just like 10 yards outside the box, on one corner, and then have a speculative ball played up the middle. And the first guy running onto it is the opposition striker. Your defence is watching the ball and then trying to catch up. And then, again, you have one goalkeeper who is playing throughout. The decision-making of that goalkeeper. When is he getting a chance to improve those things? And you look at a lot of one-on-one, there are a lot of one-on-one chances that have happened in this tournament. He's getting beaten through the legs, to the right, to the left, over the top. All sorts of situations. So, it's an extremely difficult situation, I think, for the coaches to handle, man. And I don't know what you guys think in terms of how this can be worked on or worked through to get us to a position where we can actually compete even at the junior level. Because before, sorry, I'm talking too much today, but before the qualifying campaign started, we were actually giving India a fairly solid shot and we'll take 7 points out of the first 3 or 4 matches. We'll qualify for the next group. No, based on... Under-19s, you say? No, senior teams. Senior teams, sir. Under-19s, you expect more of an impact to happen. Because, you know, various things. So, why do you guys think this isn't working out? I really... You also saw the games, bro. I saw the game against Afghanistan. It was on my mind. Which they conceded like 3 goals in the first half and then... So, what do you mean? Full breakdown? I mean, in the second half, they rallied back. They hit the post a couple of times. But it's still like there was... Like he's saying, you're getting caught out on counters very easily. Long balls over the top are just being let loose, like goalkeepers being forced into making too many saves. I mean, that's also a thing. You can't leave the goalkeeper so exposed. If he's conceding 3, I would say in every game, he's made at least 2 or 3 saves also. So, he's already doing better than what you want a goalkeeper to be. He shouldn't be facing so many shots. This is exactly like Arsenal now, again. Then go back there. You can't force a goalkeeper into facing so many shots. You can't expose them so cleanly. It's a huge problem area. I think you hit the nail in the head right at the start of this conversation. That's the thing. You come to the under-19 team from under-16, then you enter the system. So, I think we need to realize something if we're preparing for big competitions with big oppositions and we're playing top quality oppositions. Then we have to do the camp system. You take them out of the system and you keep a group of 25-30 players and you keep giving them a match out there. Because if you disperse them and send them to your clubs, then you can't even start an I-League. Do you get it? No. You can't even start an I-League. So, we say match awareness, match whatever, whatever. There's no match awareness in many players. And you've entered that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. But is it like, I mean, I'm also going to just throw this as a question. Is a camp going to give you that same thing? At least a camp maintains the intensity. Does it? It does, sure. And which is, see what a camp does is, of course it keeps the players together, in a tight-knit group, so you know each other off the field, on the field as well. And then in a camp, when you've thrown them out and you take them back, you've played two matches, played three matches. In a camp, you play five, six, seven, eight oppositions and you're going out of your country to just play games. Whatever opposition you have, whether it's a low-level opposition, whether it's a club-level team, against a national team, you're playing a match. You're setting your system, you're setting your shape, you're making yourself narrow without the ball. I am probably saying that they're taking the ball on the counter. If they win the ball towards the opposition deep in their half, and then, of course, they did it again, then it's because you're open, right, Puritra? So your team is a little desperate to score a goal. They must have seen that. Yeah, also, I guess if you take two goals in the beginning of the game, then you're always chasing the game. The chances are your players are trying to play further forward, trying to make some kind of impact. That pressure obviously tells much more on younger players than it does on senior players, because you're then just concentrating on trying to get a goal back, get a goal back, get a goal back, and then you get beaten out. But if you look at, I mean, just pure defensive mistakes, lack of community. I mean, and we keep talking about it. Under 19, unfortunately, it ends up being the first age at which we can start to attack the players in question, because they are now adults. Before that, we all try to be a little bit more charitable, more generous to the players at least, and put more BMS on the coaches. But from under 19 level onwards, if you look at global football today, whether it's Kylian Mbappe onwards and so many guys, they are playing for their national teams. They are playing for their club sides on a regular basis. So they are supposed to be ready for professional sports. That comparison is not valid here. Our systems are so far off. I mean, I don't know, that was this little viral clip that had gone around of Tajikistan scoring this really beautiful free kick routine goal at the under 19 level. Again, it was like a really well-worked, beautiful looking free kick, superb and well done. But that doesn't translate at the senior level. So there is a gap between Asian football and European football. We shouldn't bring the absolute... And we are only trying to get to the Asian standard as of now and not even at the senior level. We are only looking at age group levels, not even winning things, but making steps in some sort of progressive direction, I guess, qualifying for major tournaments. I mean, being opposition that Afghanistan and other neighbouring countries at least consider a challenge, not a 3-0 loss, you know. So this doesn't seem to be happening. Basic positioning errors, which side of the attacking player to be on when you are in that defensive position. Any player that impressed you? From the senior team? From the under 19 team, there is Vikram Pratap. The boy who was with the under 16s in the finals. He is on to the system. He is alright. The coloured ball. Who has now got blonde hair. I don't get it, man. Earlier, there was a phase where all the players were colouring their hair. Let's talk about fashion. Let's see. Golden, red. Alright, then Vikram, he was on the left. He was being played on the left, right? Left, I don't know, exactly where. I mean, they also have some fluidity in there. He was captain of the under 16s. Actually, no one really stood out. I thought, again, the difficulties are the same. You look in the midfield, you look in the full-backs, you look in the defence. You only point out the lack of finishing in front of goal. Because I suppose that's the most easy thing to say. But those chances that are... There seems to also be... A lot of the chances that we got were for offset pieces. Whether it's corners or free kicks or whatever. I mean, if we are starting this conversation on the basis that physically we are smaller, and we are, especially at age group levels, we are smaller than the Uzbeks, the Afghans. I mean, this is all statistically true, right? And the Saudis. We are not going to get three goals a game of set pieces. The hope is that we'll get one game, you know? And the delivery and the movement of those set pieces is getting better. But again, it's sort of hope for the best. Bhai, I would just... I think... I think the main thing is that... And this is not a suggestion for the decision-makers, Abhishek Yadav and everyone. Financially, it might not suit the Federation's pocket. But if you're preparing a team at that under-19, under-16 level, and you're preparing them for, say, an Asian Cup at that level or the AFC Cup qualifiers at that level, then you have to keep these boys out of the system. And you have to keep them in that bubble of 25, 30 players and keep them out of the system. You have to prepare them for that every day. If you're expecting me to play under-16 for 16 years, I've sent two boys here, two boys there. Some are coming from I-League, some are coming from ISL, some are sitting at their homes. And I've called them to the camps, but they won't be coming. We're sitting behind them. We can't afford this. We can do this with the French football team. You have to break them, go back to your system, and then you come back. You're being taken care of wherever you go. The consistency doesn't add up on different levels or different platforms. So you need to keep them together. And my counter to that will be just that this was tried in 2010 with the senior national team. They had to. So again, we keep going back to the same thing, that nothing has changed in the last 10 years. In fact, now we're saying that we have some more resources, so let's do this with the kids. If we keep doing this, and staying in this bubble, then as soon as these road maps are being made, what's the point of this? The road map won't give you results today, right? So the transition period and when the road map will give you results, the period between which you'll be lost and the players who are coming that time, what are you able to do then? So let's say you have a road map. You're saying that in the next 5 years, we'll have a structure like this, there will be a 3 tier league. In that, so many people will play. But out of this, you've taken out your best young players and sent them out under the aegis of Mahesh Gowli and Bibiano Fernandes. During that transition phase, I'm not saying forever. Yeah, but then what is the talent on which you're basing this structure? What are you doing? I'm also not a huge fan of putting people into a camp. This is a thing that is followed in a different sport in India, which has got a smaller worldwide hockey team. And that's what happens in India. Where do these guys play? There's no league in hockey. You can go to Europe to play league. You can go to Australia to play. No, I'm talking about the league of India. So that's what I'm saying. But what happens is if you put these guys in a camp, this is the opinion that a lot of former players often give with regard to hockey again. Which is in a camp, you can never, no matter who you're playing, who the opposition, you can never recreate that intensity of gameplay. You can never manage to get that, you can never improve decision-making, you can never improve tactical understanding in a camp. See, I'm just saying, okay, agreed, fair enough. Here are the three brackets for you. One, you put them in the system, right? You're 16, 18, 20 players. Out of that, you get 5 or 6 players to play. You get 10 players to play. 10 means you're in oblivion, I don't know what's going on. Then there's the other option that you put them in a camp. You get 15, 20, 16, 25 players to play. And I'm only talking about your transition phase. Sure, sure, sure. So you said road map, right? Whatever, 6 years down the line, 7 years down the line. When you implement that road map, after 10 years of that, you can say that the road map is helping or not helping. So it's a 15 year period, leave it. Okay. Send the guys in the system to the junior players. Where will we get more? We'll keep talking. Fair enough. So here's a good segue then into the national team, senior team conversation. 25 minutes in. Wow. Yeah. Which is basically, and again, there's no point getting into a massive analysis of who will play, who will not play because more or less it's going to be a very similar structure, similar squad. And at some point of time, one of us will say Raul in Burgess and then there'll be like 30 comments saying one in your squad. But why is there no Raul in Burgess? Come on. So the point is that then do you also take out these 30 players from your senior league structure? No. Because your senior league is still, see I'll tell you why. The point I'm trying to make is, the 30 boys who went to Dubai and they're going for your two games. Out of these 30, at least 25 or 26 boys are playing like this. Have you got regular game time in the last three ISL matches? No, absolutely not. So you have a guarantee of three weeks? You won't be able to play for 90 minutes in three weeks. No, sir. When your league started. 20-30 minutes. These things would have seemed like your league hasn't started yet. Then you said, I'm bringing the boys from Jaloji. You have to keep them in the camp, right? Now the league has started. I'm saying that when these boys come to play in this league of under-19, out of these 25 teams, I think there are only five of them, the players of your senior team are not able to play in the club. So that's what I'm saying. Exactly. Exactly. Which is why you have to keep them in the camp, to give them game time, to give them game awareness. No, you come on. Again, I suppose it's a circular argument. You're thinking long term. I'm thinking now. I'm also saying now. Why not? What is the central theme of having a local league? That you want to draw Indian fans, the country we watch our shows, the other shows, the fans of Indian football, who talk about it on Instagram, Twitter, we're trying to bring these people into the game to make it more watchable for us, more relatable. Why not have, if you're making a road map, if you're building a structure right now, why not have stricter rules that make for more Indian players to get in the system? No one is watching. I mean, if you have a choice, let's say last evening, right? You have at 10 p.m. or whatever time it was, Liverpool versus Manchester City going on. At that time, whatever ISL game is on, the chances are that most people will choose to watch the Liverpool City game. Most people, right? Irrespective of whether you're playing under 19 players, or if you're playing senior players, or if you're playing superstars of the national team. So, this TV-tailored scene won't work, right? It won't be made for the progressive structure team. So, give it a try. No, I think what you said about locally... Clubs are crying, and these sort of... Data has been published of how much money each franchise is losing on a monthly or annual basis. Playing younger players will reduce the wage load significantly on the clubs. And a large portion of their expenditure is on wages. It will give Indian players more opportunity to play. It will give clubs more opportunity to connect with local communities, with their fan base. If you're based in Kerala, if you're playing for AP, if you're playing for Ashik Gurun, it will be like this. Agreed, sir. That is the right system. Agreed. Fair enough. But in a country where you've developed a parallel league, a league now which has become the top league in the country, and which is still vying to... No, there's nothing parallel. I said it was parallel. What are you doing in parallel? You're showing the market that you have a product. Product is better than what you were getting in the past. Right? Now, they've thought that I will fill foreigners for now so that my game is a lot better because the general consensus is the composure on the ball, tactical awareness, where to be on the field. The foreign player is a lot more evolved as opposed to the Indian player. And on some levels, I agree with that. Now, the foreigners you're going to see in the ISL, though there are some really good top quality foreigners also, which I haven't seen in ILEE's time, solid top quality, but after that there's a gap and then the mediocre level foreigners are also getting to see. Right? Which means that we were in the J-League, we were in France, we were stuck there, let's come here. So from that angle, they are saying that we will play foreigners because we are selling our league. We are selling our league. What can you do now? You're on the crossroads, what can you do? What I'm saying is that the system here right now, it's simple, this is the system. In this, these boys are not going to be able to play that much right now. What do you know? Two years later, they will grow, they will become better players. But in those two years, what will happen in those two years? This will happen. I'm not even counting Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, you're losing 3-0 to Afghanistan. That's the real result. Yeah. So which brings us to Afghanistan who the senior squad are playing on the 14th of November in Tajikistan, in Dushanbe, on an artificial surface. Artificial. Artificial surface. In an environment that is, I mean, of course, Afghanistan are the home team in this scenario. So obviously, the environment is supposed to suit them better. What's happening with the senior national team and like, how is all of this system that we've created feeding into that? I just think firstly, you've done a nice thing on the new boys who come in, right? There's, I think, in the 26-man squad. From Bangladesh. No, this is the 26-man squad announced for the two back-to-back games that India are going to play against Afghanistan and Oman. There's a difference of six new guys from the previous matchday squad. They are Dheeraj, who's come in goal. Yeah. There's Nishukumar, who wasn't there previously. Yeah. There's Jackie, there's Dungal, there's Pranay, who's come back. And there's Faruk. Faruk. Yeah. So these are the boys, 23 of the official matchday squad, and I think we all have some sort of idea of who the boys are getting it dropped. But I think the key thing to see is that when you were discussing this, just before we pressed the role, is that central defenders, we were sort of drying up. Yes, sir. Because you're saying reports are suggesting that Adil might have pulled up a hamstring. Yes. Right? So that means there's no Sandesh, there's no Adil. Unless he's hardly played in the ISL. He's barely played. So in this scenario, you get to see some forward-looking thought processes. Like Narendra, for example, turning out for the under-19 squad on a regular basis. Yeah, he's not there in this team. Oh, he's there. Yeah, he's there. Yeah, he's there. So at least you know that this guy has had some solid international comparative fixtures behind him. Right? Agreed. Now, of course, again, the gap, all of that stuff is one thing. But at least Game du Mille. Game du Mille. So at some level, you see this forward-thinking process. On the other hand, if you look at these so-called new additions to the camp, no new names, these are all guys who have been in and around. I mean, Dheeraj was first-choice goalkeeper for the India under-17 World Cup squad two years ago. And since then, he's been much talked about, big move to the ISL, blah, blah, blah, spoken off as the next first-choice for India. He's a drop-down player. For sure. He's not going to play it, definitely. He's not going to be in the squad, I think. I mean, why a goalkeeper? I suppose it depends on whether you have to name three goalkeepers or not. Yeah. I don't know exactly what the rules are. Yeah, I don't know the rules either, but I assume that you have to have two goalkeepers. But I mean, like, if you look at the rest of the squad, man, like, there is enough free spaces. I don't mind taking a young Dheeraj along just for the experience of sitting on the bench on a match day. I really don't mind that because whatever, 10 years or 15 years, goalkeeper is an important position for us. The more we train on a goalkeeper, the better it will be. Absolutely. And also, a goalkeeper has the most chance to go out. Yes. Which we have seen from Gurpreet's career. Yes. And even other guys. But the rest of the boys, Jackie has been around forever. Len has been around forever. I'm glad Len is there. Len has been around forever. Farouk is okay. He's good. He's getting some game time in the ISL. Yeah, he's got like... He's playing well, but he has done that consistently. That's why he's made it to the setup for the national team. But where does he play in this squad? I'm actually the happiest on seeing Manveer sing there. Not purely because Manveer was never in the national team. He's always been there in the national team. But this is a different Manveer that has been made to play up front. Yeah. And he's getting game time. Yeah. And clearly his Goa coach has been seeing what he's done versus a Qatar or whichever other team Bangladesh that he played against. And he said, I'm playing this boy in this team sometimes in the half, sometimes in the wing. I'm playing him in the wing. Now, play him ahead. Develop the boy. How long will you keep on playing? Exactly. That intern is developing Indian football. Yeah. You're preparing a replacement for that big man called Sunil Chaitri. Yeah. Now, I don't know if he's a like-for-like replacement, but in his position, there's a guy, a mobile guy who knows that position and is a little bit shy. Of course, you know, his limitations were seen in the Bangladesh game as far as his positioning was concerned. Otherwise, he would have scored one or two goals. But the fact that you're being persisted with that club and national level, that's great. Especially in a position where we don't create too many players. Striking, where do we make so many players? Once in a generation, we are happy that we got an international who would score 50 goals. And the last two, three generations between Vijayan, Bhutia and Chaitri, it's been sort of thak thak thak. And in the small world, that is Indian football, that works. You have one superstar and then everyone else who's just following around. So, I mean, if that is the point, then we'll continue. The same way. For the rest of it, I mean, the same issues, I guess, remain. And maybe we should wrap this chat up. Just by saying quickly that we will present actually in the nice, actually day or two, a stats-based analysis with our partner's sports KPI on what they think statistically should be the best 11 that should represent India against Afghanistan and what they've done in the ISL. Based on the ISL, based on the performance indexes. They're used to saying all that now. Yeah. It's not the air that we're talking about. Yeah. It's just because so many people have said that we don't study at all. So, we've started to study a little. There's a paper in front of us. There's a book in front of us. So, we're trying all this. So, from the goalkeepers, let's talk about this till the forward position. Who is getting how much to play, who is doing what on the game and how that can, how that can affect India. This is just a general chat, mainly to review what the under-19s did and sort of build up the momentum back after the Diwali break. Okay. Yeah. Okay, brother. Anything else you boys want to add before we sort of say goodbye? I just think Pranoy has a good chance even though he's not played much. I think he has a chance of playing purely because your two stopper backs and sir, I would play a player. suspect looking. So, you'll have to give some defensive cover in the future. Yeah, actually interesting. Since we're talking about stats, the one stat that did stand out is both Anirudh and Sahel who statistically would be India's central midfield have gotten the least amount of minutes in the ISL. So, a guy like Pranay who perhaps is playing a little more, I think he's playing a little more game time might just work better in that cover role. But we'll do that and more in the next episode and we'll be doing a live blog and live commentary on the game as usual. So, stay tuned for that. In the meantime, 420 grams is back. Oh yeah. And we're going to make Pandey do an on-air promise that we'll do one show every week. Promise. Very reluctantly. But that's the show for today. Thanks for watching guys. Stay tuned.