India U-19 football team to travel to Serbia for friendly fixtures as part of AIFF's exposure tour

New Delhi: The Indian U-19 football team will be travelling to Serbia to play two international friendlies against the Serbian U-19 side on 13 September and 17 September. After playing in the four-nation tournament in Croatia against France, Croatia and Slovenia, the India U-19 team is now gearing up for a new challenge. [caption id=“attachment_4806451” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Getty[/caption] Both the matches are part of the exposure tour being organised by the All India Football Federation (AIFF) in coordination with SAI to provide the best possible preparation to the U-19 players for the forthcoming Hero I-League season and the U-19 AFC Championship qualification in 2019. National team director Abhishek Yadav said playing regularly against top 50 youth national teams has its own significance. “Serbia will be the fifth top-50 team (as per the FIFA rankings) that we will be facing within a month-and-a-half. In a 50-day period, we will be competing in six matches against regular World Cuppers from the two continents of world football – South America and Europe,” he stated. “The matches have been part of competitions so there has been that added edge. The players and our all-Indian staff are learning from these tough tests. Motivation levels are now much higher. I am satisfied with the way we were able to design this pre-season and this is the way we aim to continue,” he added. “I am optimistic the influence of all these programmes will be seen for long to shape up a better future for Indian football.” The Indian U-19 team had earlier participated in the COTIF Cup in Spain before flying to Croatia for the Four-Nation Tournament. In the COTIF Cup, India defeated U-20 Argentina 2-1 and held U-20 World Cup runners-up Venezuela to a goal-less draw.