The Indian national football team is gearing up for their historic international friendly against China, scheduled to be held on October 13. The match is going to be played as part of their preparation for the forthcoming AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019.
The much-anticipated match, slated to be played at the Suzhou Olympic Sports Centre Stadium in Suzhou City, east China's Jiangsu Province, will be held in the scheduled FIFA October window.
Quite interestingly, although the two neighboring countries have faced each other 17 times in the past, the Indian senior team never played a single game in China till date. Each of their previous matches was played on Indian soil, with the last held 21 years ago for the Nehru Cup in Kochi in 1997.
China never lost a single game against the Indian senior team, winning 12 matches and drawing in the remaining five.
Italy's World Cup-winning coach Marcello Lippi's Chinese side, who missed the World Cup earlier this year by a whisker and also failed to shine at the recently concluded Asian Games, will be hoping to reign supreme over their unfancied rivals once again. Meanwhile, the coach of the Indian national team, Stephen Constantine, sounded upbeat as he stated, "These are the kind of games we need."
China's coach Marcello Lippi with his team during a training session. /VCG Photo
In a media statement to CGTN, Constantine, who guided his team to an unbeaten run of 12 official matches between June 2016 and November 2017, noted, "China are a strong team and the match will be a tough test for us. But we need to play these sort of games right now. Getting to play under pressure is important and an away fixture in China is exactly the kind of game we need."
"Hopefully everyone stays free from injury as it's going to be an important game for the build-up to the AFC Asian Cup in January," he added.
Meanwhile, Kushal Das, the general secretary of the All India Football Federation (AIFF) – India's football governing body – said in a statement that the AIFF is looking forward to a "long bilateral footballing relationship with China."
"Globally India and China are now being looked up to as two of the fastest emerging Football markets. The match will usher in a new era in Asian Football as this is the first-time ever that the Indian National Team will be travelling to play in China. We look forward to a long term bilateral footballing relationship with China in near future," he said.
China are currently ranked 76th in the September FIFA Rankings while India have just breached the 100-mark with the latest ranking of 97th.