The AFC Asian Cup is upon us. UAE drew against Bahrain 1-1 in their first Group A encounter to kick things off on Saturday. A lot of Indian eyes were on this game considering that the Blue Tigers are drawn in the same group along with Thailand.

The quadrennial extravaganza will see India participate for only the fourth time, eight years after they last qualified for the tournament. India will hope to qualify for the second round, after the Asian Football Confederation tweaked its format.

The 1964 edition of the tournament saw India record its best-ever finish, a runners-up spot but only four teams participated in the third edition of the Asian Cup.

1964

India didn’t have to qualify for the 1964 after a string of pull-outs saw only four teams make it to the final tournament in Israel. A total of 16 teams were included in the qualifiers, including India who were placed in the West Zone.

However as luck would have it, only Hong Kong had to win their qualifiers while India, South Korea and the hosts did not have to kick a ball before the showpiece event. As eminent Indian football historian Novy Kapadia states, Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s Prime Minister at the time died on the day of their opening match but the team took to the field against South Korea and beat the Taeguk Warriors 2-0 courtesy of goals from K Appalaraju and Inder Singh.

They lost to the hosts Israel 2-0 in their next match but bounced back to defeat Hong Kong 3-1 in their final encounter, Inder Singh striking again. India finished as runners-up with four points, behind eventual winners Israel

1984

The team under the management of Milovan Ciric qualified after playing all of its qualifiers in Calcutta. Drawn alongside South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan and North Yemen, the Blue Tigers won three and lost against the Koreans to qualify for Singapore 1984.

Considered to be one of the best Indian teams consisting of Subrata Bhattacharya, Bikash Panji, Derrick Pereira, Krishanu Dey and Sudip Chatterjee, India eventually went down tamely in the final round, losing all but one of their matches.

Drawn against the hosts Singapore, China, Iran and the UAE, India conceded seven in their four matches, scoring none. Ciric’s team managed a draw against Iran but lost 2-0 to Singapore and UAE, while going down 3-0 to the Chinese.

2011

It would be 27 long years before India made it to another Asian Cup. India qualified by virtue of winning the AFC Challenge Cup 2008 at home, beating Tajikistan 4-1 in the final with Sunil Chhetri bagging a hat-trick.

India were drawn into the Group of Death alongside Australia, South Korea and Bahrain. The Group C opener saw them pitted against Australia. The Socceroos, riding on a Tim Cahill brace, beat India emphatically, 4-0.

The next match against Bahrain saw Gouramangi Singh and Sunil Chhetri strike in either half but could not prevent them from slipping to a 5-2 loss. Their last match against South Korea saw the Blue Tigers handed a 4-1 defeat, with the then 18-year-old Son Heung-Min scoring his first-ever international goal.