AFC U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers: As the India U23 men’s football team are preparing for their two friendly matches against Malaysia, head coach Naushad Moosa believes in the importance of working as per the needs of the senior team since the juniors graduating to the next level is a continuous process of taking football ahead.
Coached by former India defender Moosa, the U23s have had a few sessions in the national capital and will have one more session before flying out to Kuala Lumpur to play the two friendlies, scheduled on March 22 and 25.
Moosa, who has been working with the team for the last few days, the-aiff.com, “It’s important for us to see what the senior team wants and play according to that. These are the boys who will ultimately go and play for the Senior Team.”
“We have a four-day camp here in Delhi, so we’re trying our best to build from here and go ahead. The most important thing for us at this stage is to give the boys an idea of the way we want to play so that they can execute that on the pitch,” he said.
Malaysia, under Spanish coach Juan Torres Garrido, are currently preparing for the AFC U23 Asian Cup, set to take place in Doha, Qatar, in April.
Garrido took charge of the Malaysia U23s a day before the senior teams of India and they crossed swords in the Merdeka Tournament last year.
Having analysed a few of Malaysia’s matches, Moosa said, “We’ve shown a couple of their matches to the boys, and we are strategising according to that. They’ve got an attacking team that does not play too many passes in midfield. They like to move the ball quickly and take a lot of shots at the goal, so our boys must be careful. We must play in a compact manner against them.”
The India U23s had a mixed bag of results last year, losing their AFC U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers Group G against hosts China (1-2) and UAE (0-3) in September, but made it to the quarterfinals of the Asian Games in China.
The Malaysia U23s had beaten Bangladesh (2-0) and the Philippines (4-0), and lost to Thailand (0-1) in the AFC U23 Asian Cup Qualifiers last year. Their most recent match was a friendly against China U23s, which they lost 1-2.
