Football: India U-19 team's poor performance in AFC Championships Qualifiers to be reviewed by AIFF

Taking a serious note of India U-19 football team’s disappointing showing in the AFC Championships qualifiers, the All India Football Federation on Saturday decided to review the performance of the Floyd Pinto-coached side.

Pinto has been asked by the AIFF to meet national team director Abhishek Yadav, technical director Isac Doru and senior side head coach Igor Stimac for a review meeting.

India had lost all their group matches of the recently-concluded AFC U-19 Championships Qualifiers – 0-2 against Uzbekistan, 0-4 against defending champions Saudi Arabia and 0-3 against Afghanistan.

The team had gone into the tournament with hopes of making into the main round after winning the OFC Youth Development Tournament and SAFF U-18 Championship. A lot of money were also spent to send the team for exposure trips to Serbia, Russia, Croatia and Turkey.

“We are very concerned about the performance of the U-19 team and I have asked Pinto to meet Abhishek, Isac Doru and even Igor Stimac for a detailed review of what went wrong in the AFC Championships qualifiers performance,” AIFF general secretary Kushal Das told PTI.

“The players have been doing well generally but the results (in the AFC U-19 Championships Qualifiers) were strange. We know Saudi Arabia are the defending champions and Uzbekistan have been doing well recently but still we should have produced a much better performance,” he added.

The 0-3 loss to Afghanistan was the one the AIFF was not able to digest.

“That was a horrible match,” Das said.

He said the video footages of India’s matches will be analysed and the technical committee of the AIFF will also be asked to give its inputs.

“It is not an inquiry, it is just a review. On the basis of this review, we will see what can be done and what steps can be taken. On the inputs given by these experts, we will see whether we can have a different approach to the game or change the playing style, like that.”

Asked if the coach’s position may be on the line, he said, “No, as of now it will be a detailed analysis of the performance of the team.