Azerbaijan vs India - Match preview (Indian perspective)

The Indian national team will take on Azerbaijan at The Sevens Stadium in Dubai on Monday. This will be the first ever meeting between the two sides in the history of football. The UEFA nation will be not be fielding their key player in this fixture – Elvin Mammodov, who famously scored against Finland in the 2010 WC qualifier. Azerbaijan are ranked 109th in the world and have never qualified for the European Championship or the FIFA world cup. They recently drew 2-2 with Singapore which indicates that this will be a close match.

After a disappointing result against Oman in the last outing, India will use this game to regain their confidence and prepare for the upcoming AFC Challenge Cup. Air India and Pailan arrows strikers, Manandeep Singh and CS Sabeeth are likely to get more game time at the expense of a disappointing Sushil Kumar. Manandeep Singh featured for less than 10 minutes against Oman which isn’t enough for any player to make a significant impact. This game might well decide the partner up front for Sunil Chettri in the Challenge Cup since Jeje will not be featuring at all.

A change in the defensive line up will not be a shock either. East Bengal winger Vashum is also likely to feature in some capacity since he did not get a chance in the last game. It will be interesting to see if Savio fields Locus lamare and upcoming Sporting Club De Goa midfielder Adil khan in place of Lenny Rodriguez and Francis Fernandez. The importance of the final score of this match will be secondary to the performances of the team since it is an international friendly. Having said that, Jewel Raja and Nabi will most likely be the catalysts if the blue tigers are to prance over a higher ranked Azerbaijan.

The kick off time is 19:00 IST (17:30 local time).