Forward of the 2nd leg of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and AFC Asian Cup 2027 joint qualifiers in between India and Afghanistan in Guwahati on March 26, Ashley Westwood, the Afghanistan mentor, mentioned Indian soccer improved considerably in the past decade thanks to exercise and ‘conditioning’.
“Ten many years in the past when I arrived in this article, in comparison to that, (the Indian) soccer has improved significantly,” Westwood, who managed Bengaluru FC, ATK FC and RoundGlass Punjab FC in India, informed PTI.
“Every participant is physically match, all people is conditioned effectively, they very last 90 minutes (and) you really do not see Indian gamers acquiring cramps,” he additional.
Westwood, who joined Afghanistan in 2023, said his team’s target will be on receiving the principles right.
“(Even) Cristiano Ronaldo also missed likelihood, and even now he is a single of the greatest players in the entire world that’s football,” Westwood mentioned.
“Just get the ball in the right locations and enjoy perfectly — which is all we are worried about,” he explained, including Afghanistan’s probabilities have improved since he took charge.
In the initially leg of the next round of qualifiers, India performed out a 1-1 attract towards Afghanistan on March 22 in Abha, Saudi Arabia.
Next the attract, despite India’s failure to win against a 2nd-string Afghanistan staff, Blue Tigers coach Igor Stimac explained, “I’m not upset with the end result at the stop since we made 3, four genuinely excellent likelihood. We could not score, which is apparent. The difficulty which has been following us for numerous, lots of a long time, it is a properly-acknowledged difficulty in our soccer”, said Stimac in the write-up-match press conference.”