India vs Thailand at 6 PM
The Indian national football team (senior men’s) take on Thailand away in Manolo Marquez’s first game as full-time manager of the national team — he quit the FC Goa gig right after this season ended — and he’ll be hoping for a winning start to this leg of his NT career.
With Sunil Chhetri back from retirement and prominent in his plans for the near future, Manolo will look to the 40-year-old talisman to get India scoring some goals again. The return of Lallianzuala Chhangte to full fitness should aid that aim, as should the fine domestic form of the likes of Liston Colaco. At the back, the return of Anwar Ali adds a touch of flair to a defensive unit that has plenty of mettle. It will be interesting to see if he can displace first choice centre-backs Sandesh Jhingan and Rahul Bheke, though, both of whom had stellar ISL seasons.
Manolo has taken the full 28-member squad with the aim of experimenting with new combinations and it remains to be seen if he will hand debuts to the likes of Suhail Bhat, a young striker from Mohun Bagan who was in fine touch in the season-ending Super Cup, or Nikhil Prabhu, who had a fantastic first half of the ISL season with Punjab FC as their main central defensive midfielder. Old hands like Udanta Singh and Brandon Fernandes are likely to feature prominently, but India fans will be hoping for a sight of the uncapped players as well as youngsters Edmund Lalrindika and Ayush Dev Chhetri.
You can read more about the match in our preview right here — India vs Thailand friendly: Sunil Chhetri and co. aim for winning momentum
We will be covering the match from pre-match build up to all the action between kickoff and the final whistle right here on our India vs Thailand live blog:
