Coach Stimac releases 6 more players from National Camp

by Chittu Shetty May 30, 2019

Indian Senior National Team Head Coach Igor Stimac has released another batch of 6 players from the ongoing preparatory camp in New Delhi.

The second batch of the six released players includes Narayan Das, Salam Ranjan Singh, Dhanpal Ganesh, Rowllin Borges, Komal Thatal. In addition, central defender Anwar Ali (Jr) has also been released owing to an injury.

The Camp which kicked-off with 37 players on May 21, currently has a strength of 25 players. Stimac had earlier released a first batch of 6 players.

The final list of 23 players for India’s campaign in the King’s Cup will be announced prior to departure to Buriram. Stimac, who as a coach had guided Croatia to qualify for the FIFA World Cup Brazil 2014 stated that it is “always difficult for the coach to take hard decisions, and release players.”

“We are more than happy with the commitment of the players so far, and have really enjoyed working with them every day,” Stimac said. “They are passionate, excited, and are making obvious progress on a daily basis,” he added.

“The hardest part of the job comes when decisions are to be done about releasing some of them after hard work they put in for the past ten days,” he explained.

“After yesterday’s (May 29) game which we played as part of our evening training session, we decided to release another 6 players. All of them have been handed their individual working programme which is to be followed, and monitored. I wish them good luck, and expect them to be working hard,” the Coach maintained.

The Blue Tigers will be leaving for Buriram en route Bangkok on June 2 from New Delhi. The King’s Cup is a FIFA-sanctioned International ‘A’ tournament being organised by the Football Association of Thailand since 1968. India’s previous participation in the King’s Cup were in 1977, and 1981.

India play their first match against Curacao on June 5, with hosts Thailand taking on Vietnam in the other match on the same day. The winners of both the matches qualify for the final, while the two others teams would be playing the play-off for the 3^rd spot on June 8.

Excluded players: Narayan Das, Salam Ranjan Singh, Dhanpal Ganesh, Rowllin Borges, Komal Thatal and Anwar Ali (jr.)[injury]