More woes for Koevermans as Arata and Mehtab miss practice

Izumi Arata

Mehtab Hossain and Izumi Arata have given Indian national football team coach Wim Koevermans a potential selection headache as they both missed Tuesday’s practice session.

Mehtab could not attend the training session as he was ill and Japanese-born midfielder skipped training due to injury.

Mehtab’s absence will be a problem for Koevermans as he had become indispensable during the Dutch coach’s era. Arata was seen training separately with the team physio.

Sandip Nandy, who carried an injury from the Tajikistan match, re-joined practice-session after missing on Saturday.

Both T.Karma and Md. Rafique also could not join the camp due to passport problems and were eventually axed from the squad. Denzil Franco too was forced to leave the camp after he missed practice on Saturday due to a knock.

The Indian team take on Bengaluru FC in a practice game on Sunday.