Highlights - India Beat Thailand 4-1, Begin AFC Asian Cup With a Bang

In this video preview Newsclick team looks at the key match-ups and dynamics of the India vs Thailand match.

Good evening and welcome to our live blog. Hopefully you have dumped all your plans for a Sunday evening and have instead decided to spend it in front of a TV watching India. If not then at least you are reading this. 

This is a big game. And one where India haven’t done well for a bit. In 21 encounters we have a mere five wins against Thailand the last of which came in 1986. Dust the gloom off though because a lot has gone right (and wrong) for indian football since. 

We will have the teams with you soon. As of know we can confirm one thing: Sunil Chhetri will start and Stephen Constantine will be in the dugout.

It may surprise you to know that the ageless Sunil Chhetri was actually at a point of time a young boy with role models!! Imagine that! He’s taken the time to tell the world who they were.

In other indian football news. Real Kashmir FC, debutants, misfits, the sole sporting ray of hope from a beautiful state have beaten Mohun Bagan today in the I League. That Mohun Bagan. With those centuries of history and the dust in their trophy cabinet.

And Sunday is off to a somewhat auspicious start. There has already been an upset in the Asian Cup! The defending champs Australia have been beaten by Jordan.

And to make matters even rosier for India, UAE and Bahrain played out a 1-1 draw last night. A win today takes us to the top of our group!! Imagine that!!!

Jordan’s winner was scored by Anas Bani Yaseen. Anas… hmmmm. We have one of those.

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu (c); Sandesh Jhingan, Anas Edathodika, Subhashish Ghosh, Pritam Kotal; Anirudh Thapa, Ashish Kuruniyan, Pronay Halder, Halicharan Nazary, Udanta Singh; Sunil Chhetri.

C Bootprom; T Do, C Kerdkaew, P Hemviboon, T Bunmathan; T Puangchan, S Dechmitr; A Kraisom, C Songkrasin, S Jaided; T Dangda (c)

1’ Thailand kick off. And immediately start pinging the ball around.

2’ Gurpreet kicks it long. Looooooong, and Chhetri fouls right near the box. Thailand win the freekick and push upfield.

3’ India suddenly have a bit of possession and cause a few problems on the left for Thailand. Nazry dropping two lovely crosses into a box devoid of Indian shirts.

4' Chadh ke khel rahe hain ladke. India have shown intent so far. Looking to press Thailand and establish themselves on the game.

5’ India are using the aerial ball to some great effect. And Thailand’s right is getting a bit of a run around. Subashish launches one in from the halfway line and Thailand’s Bootprom gathers, albeit under pressure from Udanta.

9’ Tristan Do is in for a long evening if India keep up this left sided attacking verve. Already they have used the flanks more than Australia did in their game against Jordan.

12’ India will have to keep the pressure on if that’s how they have decided to play. The flip side of that approach is it opens up spaces for Thailand to work their way into. This is a technically solid Thai side that will exploit even half a yard of extra space.  

15’ Chhetri wins a free kick 30 yards out, to the left. Too angled and far for a direct shot, but a good place to float one in. Although Renedy Singh has scored one from almost this position in the Nehru Cup against Syria in 2009. He is in the studio tonight. If he wasn’t wearing a suit, he’d probably have taken a pop.

20’ Bit disappointed to see such a sparse crowd at this game. In Qatar eight years ago the local Indian community turned out in massive numbers to watch India. Despite the results the games were all played to full houses. Really hoped to see the same.