Match Preview: India vs UAE – AFC U22 Championship Qualifiers

INDIA U22 vs UAE U22

AFC U22 Championship Qualifiers

Royal Oman Police Stadium

7:45 pm Local Time, 9:15 pm IST

In an important clash of Group D in the AFC U22 Championship Qualifiers, India U22 team will be facing UAE U22 today in the Royal Oman Police Stadium at 7:45pm Local Time, 9:15pm IST.

This match is an important on in the group, more so for India. A positive result against UAE would mean that we remain in contention. A loss however would not rule us out totally.

UAE has won both its matches in the competition. They outplayed the hosts Oman 2-0 in ther opening match and overcame Turkmenistan 1-0. India on the other hand beat Lebanon 5-2 hands-down but lost against Iraq 2-1.

Iraq are the  strongest team in the group both on paper and on-field. But India had given a brave account of themselves, cornering Iraq in the last quarter of the match. This result must inspire the team and give fuel against UAE.

The manner in which UAE struggled against relatively weaker Turkmenistan is a bad sign for them. Turkmenistan had been drubbed 4-0 by Iraq earlier and gave a tough time to UAE.

India however will be missing the services of their top-scorer and creative attacking midfielder George Alwyn. He had been shown 2 yellow cards, one in each match. The yellow card he received in the last match, however, was unfortunate as he was genuinely fouled but referee found him guilty of diving.

Another cause of concern is Jeje Lalpekhlua or the absence of him. He had to be replaced in the last match at the 38th minute due to ankle injury. He is not in the starting line up today and it is not known whether he would be in the substitute list.

INDIA Starting XI: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu (Captain); Abhishek Das, Souvik Ghosh, Prathamesh Maulinkar, Narayan Das; Pranay Halder, Milan Singh, Saiju Mon, Tirthankar Sarkar, Lalrindika Ralte, Manandeep Singh.

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