 "The Indian football team has had a forgettable 2024 throughout without much positives to take away. Reuters")
The Indian football team has endured a horrendous 2024 so far. There were expectations from the Blue Tigers to scale new heights at the AFC Asian Cup in Qatar, but failed to so. India’s talismanic skipper Sunil Chhetri announced retirement from international football, playing his final match against Kuwait in a 0-0 draw in June . India also failed to qualify for the third round of the FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifiers, in the aftermath of which Igor Stimac was sacked as head coach.
India haven’t really had a change of fortunes under new head coach Manolo Marquez so far, drawing 0-0 against Mauritius and losing to Syria 0-3 in friendlies that were held in September. India will play their final match of 2024 in a friendly against Malaysia on 19 November.
We take a look at what went wrong for the Indian football team that has led to a disastrous year so far:
Forgettable AFC Asian Cup campaign
India had a nightmarish run at the 2023 AFC Asian Cup in Qatar . They faced Australia, Uzbekistan and Syria in the group stages. Not only did they lose all matches, India also failed to find the back of the net even once.
So much so that India were able to achieve a total of only five shots on target across the three matches. India began with a 0-2 loss to Australia, 0-3 defeat to Uzbekistan and 0-1 to Syria. Not to forget, India came into the tournament with injury concerns, most notably Ashique Kurunyan, Sahal Abdul Samad, Jeakson Singh and Anwar Ali. During the Asian Cup, defender Sandesh Jhingan too suffered an injury after he hurt his knee against Syria. India finished fourth and last in Group B with zero points.
Winless across all matches for almost a year
India are winless in international football across all competitions for almost a year. The Blue Tigers last won a competitive fixture on 16 November, 2023 when they beat Kuwait in a FIFA World Cup 2026 Qualifier match in Kuwait, where Manvir Singh scored a goal in the second half.
Since then, India have been winless in 11 matches, with their latest result being a 1-1 draw against Vietnam in a friendly on 12 October. India have lost seven of these 11 matches, while drawing the other four.
Defeat to Afghanistan
One of India’s horrific results this year came in March when they went down to Afghanistan 1-2 at home in a FIFA World Cup qualifier match. Sunil Chhetri scored the lone goal for India in that game, but the Blue Tigers could have taken an early lead in the third minute, had it not been for a miss from Manvir Singh. Chhetri finally scored the opener in 38th minute by converting a penalty.
Liston Colaco and Manvir Singh had their opportunities to score too, but India were left to rue their missed chances.
Afghanistan slowly crawled back into the game and it was in the 70th minute when Rahmat Akbari scored the equaliser. India were guilty of ball-watching by this point, and lost possession. In the 88th minute, Sharif Mukhammad converted a penalty with a right-footed shot past Gurpreet Singh Sandhu.
Failure to qualify for AFC age-group tournaments
It’s not just the senior men’s team who have let down the die-hard fans. India also failed to qualify for any of the age-group tournaments. This includes both the men’s and women’s teams to qualify on merit for the FIFA U17 World Cup, an event that India have previously hosted.
A 2-3 loss to Thailand on Sunday meant that India were out of the race to qualify for the 2025 U17 AFC Asian Cup that will be played in Saudi Arabia.
AIFF president Kalyan Chaubhey had also reportedly promised that the India men’s football team and the women’s team would make the top 10 and top eight in Asia. However, that has not happened, with the men’s team 26th and women’s team 13th in Asia.
Expelling of Mohun Bagan, East Bengal have task cut out
The year went from bad to worse for Indian football in early October after Mohun Bagan Super Giant were forcibly withdrawn from the AFC Champions League Two competition after their failure to travel to Iran. Mohun Bagan were due to travel to Iran for a Champions League match against Tractor SC, but refused to do so due to security issues amid the Israel-Iran war.
The AFC, in a statement, said that Mohun Bagan had been withdrawn from the competition after “the club failed to report to Tabriz against Tractor FC on October 2, 2024.” All of the club’s results this season were considered “null and void”.
East Bengal FC, on the other hand, are playing in the AFC Challenge League, the third tier of Asian club football competitions. They drew with Bhutan outfit 2-2, and are in second place in the four-team group with one point. The team that finishes on top of the group secures automatic qualification to the next stage, whereas the one best runner-up team between groups A and C also qualify. East Bengal are currently in second place in Group A.