2016 South Asian Games Football

Afghanistan is not participating in neither of the tournaments. The Secretary General of AFF yesterday confirmed Afghanistan is not happy about India hosting the SAFF Championship and will not take part in tournaments hosted by India unless there is improvement in hosting.

 

What a shitty excuse by Afghanistan.. This is lack of sportsmanship.. They should be speaking up against WSG the group that hosts SAFF instead of taking it out on India.. Does it also mean Afghans will pull out of all sports??.. Ideally they should

 

That was rather petulant by Afghanistan. Wonder if they would've done this had they won the final?

 

It was not about the final, since we know India played very well in the final. It is not professional to keep a team outside for 10 minutes during the interval, and this is exactly what happened to Maldives in their semi-final match with India. Maldives coach could not even talk about his plans for the second half because of this issue.

You have already read the India newspaper reports on weak organization of the tournament. It is really hard to believe the host team is practicing in the main stadium every day, but the other teams are not allowed to practice for a second. These do not look professional.

These being said, the coach of the national team did not allow the U23 players of the national team to play in this tournament, which meant a very weak Afghanistan side if the decision was to participate in this tournament.

I think overall our federations should be more serious about hosting. The teams should not spend their energy on organizations issues, they should focus on the game.

 

I'm going to give them a chance to redeem themselves. It's different organizers and a completely contrasting host city this time. Hopefully they won't screw this up, but this is South Asia we're talking about.

 

if the organisation sucks, and all favours the home team India, there is no real reason to send a team, especially given Afghanistan have moved into CAFF.
Its great for Afghanistan to still be invovled in SAFF matches but going forward, its best to move away and concentrate on CAFF / International friendlies.
The Saff region is weak and have no professionalism nor do any of the teams (besides India) want to improve - its the same every year with these teams..

 

Organizers have finalized the decision that allows teams to include 3 overage players in their squads. Ricki Herbert is also looking at some of the more impressive performers in the recently concluded Atoll Championships (or if you were in India, the state leagues). In Maldives, all the league matches are played at a centralized location in the capital Male', so the majority of our talent who live outside the Greater Male' region go unnoticed. Hopefully with FAM's decision to include the champions of that tournament in the President's Cup, as well as to include the champion teams of every zone in the 3rd Division starting from this season, we will get to see a greater exposure of talent from a much wider and diverse pool of players.

If only we had done this from the beginning.

 

Shock result on paper for Sri Lanka, but when you consider the fact that this is pretty much the same squad they took to the SAFF Championship and Bangabandhu Gold Cup, it is perhaps not so surprising.

 

Nepal 5-0 Bhutan

 

Great credit to them all the same. They looked down and out after getting embarrassed by Bhutan in the World Cup preliminary qualifiers, but they have really knuckled down and worked hard to turn their football around. And they're off to a great start already, it seems. I'm certainly nervous about Maldives confrontation against them tomorrow!

 

Now India must beat Maldives by a margin of 3 goals to avoid elimination. Does anyone know what sort of team India have brought this time? They took their U-19 squad to the last South Asian Games.

 

India will most probably face Nepal in the semis. Should be a good match.