India brace up for tougher battle against Indonesia in Women's Futsal Asian Cup qualifiers (original) (raw)

Sruti Chakraborty
AIFF Media Team

YOGYAKARTA, INDONESIA: The euphoria over playing the first ever international women’s futsal tie now confined to history, the Indian Women’s Futsal team ready themselves for a sterner test against hosts Indonesia in the Group B of the AFC Women’s Futsal Asian Cup 2025 qualifiers on Friday, January 17, 2025.

The match will kick off at 2:30 pm IST at the Among Rogo Sports Hall and will be streamed live on rctiplus.com.

On Wednesday, January 15, 2025, Indian girls stepped onto the bigger stage of international futsal against Hong Kong that ended in a 0-5 defeat.

Though those present in the arena when India made their debut were disappointed. At the same time, they felt the Indians were beaten, but were certainly not disgraced. Since it was their first match, the experience of not having played at this level was clearly visible.

India’s head coach Joshuah Vaz summed it up well after the outing. "The result did not do justice to how brilliantly our girls played in the first half. It was the first time the girls played at this level, and played well. We lacked experience and Hong Kong was better at it."

The task in hand is tougher now. The girls will face Indonesia who beat Kyrgyz Republic 11-3 in their opening match yesterday. Indonesia, placed 24 in FIFA Rankings, reached the quarter-final of the AFC Women's Futsal Asian Cup in 2018. They were also the third-placed team in the ASEAN Women's Futsal Championship in 2024 and were champions of PFF Women's Tri-Nation Futsal in 2023.

Having all these in mind, Joshuah said, "Indonesia are a well-organised team, training for a long time. They have been playing the sport for a long time and have experienced players in their ranks.

“Indonesia have a good competitive domestic league in their country that lasts over six to seven months. So yes, it will be a tough match tomorrow."

The top two teams from each group and the best third-placed team among all five groups will qualify for the AFC Women's Futsal Asian Cup to be hosted by China in May 2025. Currently in Group B, Indonesia and Hong Kong have three points with Indonesia leading the table while India and Kyrgyz Republic are yet to open their accounts.

"We still have a chance to qualify. Looking at the results all over Asia, there's still a chance, as we have two games to go. We will try to work on defence and try to frustrate the opponents. You lose concentration for even a single second and face the danger of conceding. So we are going to work on the mental aspect with the girls also and on the tactical side a bit,” the coach said.

“The game is always shifting between attacking and defending. To manage this, we need at least a dozen equally skilled players for effective rotations. Our training today will focus on defence, ball possession, and a few key attacking moves. We will focus on keeping our shape in the mid zone, not too low, not too close. We won't allow them to penetrate us to the middle and hit them on the counter attack," the Joshuah said.

Ritika Singh was one of the key performers against Hong Kong, often holding the ball and creating chances. Hailing from Pune, Ritika has some experience playing five-a-side football.

Ritika said playing futsal is a different experience. "Futsal is difficult and different. People think it is easy but when you play you get to understand the difference. It is faster and more tactical. No matter what the result will be, we will give our best. Indonesia being the best in our group, we will try to hold and play.

“In the 40 minutes that we will get, we will try on counter attacks and create our chances to score. We hope we will get to play more competitions in the future as we want to play and win at a higher stage,” she said.

Futsal in India is yet to achieve the popularity like in some other nations, but Joshuah believes that these three games in Indonesia will create the necessary awareness and India can have more futsal players.

“We have to understand that most of these girls have not played futsal, so it's a learning experience for them. They have to now understand what it is to play futsal at the international level.

“These girls are the pioneers and they can tell others about their experience of playing here. We do a lot of coach education through AIFF. Coaches need to come to these courses. I am sure this tournament has been an eye-opener for everyone and this can be a catalyst for having a fixed futsal league for women in India, which will definitely help Indian girls become better players.

"Our goal remains bigger. Even though we lack experience internationally, we are going to try our best. I am hoping to have a better target, better preparation for the next qualification the next time,” Joshuah said.