Winning the game is very crucial, says Igor Stimac ahead of Kuwait clash

India’s football coach Igor Stimac said winning the game against Kuwait in the World Cup qualifiers will be really crucial. India was recently stunned by Afghanistan as they suffered a 2-1 loss and they will certainly look to come up with a better performance.

The match against Kuwait will also be Sunil Chhetri’s last international match for the Blue Tigers. The Croatian said that reaching the third round would be a huge boost for the Indian team.

“The game against Kuwait is going to be the most important match for India in the last three decades. India never could achieve the third round in the World Cup Qualifiers. Having the very opportunity to be in that position is an achievement by itself,” the Blue Tigers’ coach said.

“Reaching there (Round 3) will be another step in Indian football history,” said Stimac. “It will be an amazing thing to have the opportunity to play another 10 games against the best Asian teams and dream big about trying to reach the biggest stage of football.”

Asked how he is preparing his boys for the fateful night on June 6, Stimac said: “In the way we always do. We now have the opportunity to train and spend time together for a longer period to bring the intensity level up and achieve the needed level of international football.

“For such an important game, we need to do a few things; in regards to strength conditioning, in regards to understanding what it needs, in regards to how important this game is, and in regards to mental strength and self-confidence. So, we work on all aspects needed for our boys to be on top of their form in this game,” he said.

The coach said: “There are two key points for the preparations for this game. First, winning the game is crucial. And to reach that target, we need to be very clever. We need to understand that in the game, we require patience. If we don’t open the scoring in the first half an hour, we need to be intelligent and play quality football together with pace.

India had also beaten Kuwait in the SAFF Championship final in 2023 in Bengaluru and they will look to replicate the same performance.

“Each of those matches was very tough and I can clearly state that we controlled all those games in superb ways,” he said. “We dominated for the bigger parts in each one of these games. We were above them physically. But on other occasions, before the Kuwait games, we had many games that helped us reach that level.

“But it is a different game now because they are coming here when we didn’t have the opportunity to play games. No league is being played now, no club is available. But we did play two games between us to reach the intensity we required.

India will take on Kuwait at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata on June 6th.