Indian football team coach Igor Stimac was present at the Salt Lake Stadium during the recent Kolkata derby on March 10. He may have been in the audience to observe the performance of some of the national team players playing for Mohun Bagan and East Bengal that day.
However, it’s now clear that he was impressed by the crowd. As per reports from TV9 Bangla, coach Stimac has showed interest to people close to him about in playing in Kolkata at the Salt Lake Stadium. Reportedly, he has even expressed this to AIFF President Kalyan Chaubey.
It seems there are two reasons behind the coach’s interest in the Kolkata stadium – the weather and the crowd. The match against the Kuwait football team is set on June 6. Reports say, the coach is expecting that the rain in June could aid them in this case.
Afghanistan players are not habituated with playing on monsoon-wet grounds. Hence, India will have the advantage along with the amazing crowd that will back then if they play in Kolkata. This season, Salt Lake Stadium has seen the most attendance on average in Indian Super League.
The Kolkata crowd is well-known for their love of the game and unwavering willingness to be present at the stadium whenever there is a big match occuring. This includes Indian football team matches that are occasionally held at the stadium, like AFC Asian Cup qualifiers matches in 2022.
All three of those qualifiers matches were played at the Salt Lake Stadium and the attendance for those three matches were as follows:
India vs Cambodia (June 8, 2022) – 26,118
India vs Afghanistan (June 11, 2022) – 44,216
India vs Hong Kong (June 14, 2022) – 48,216
India’s next two matches are away and home matches against Afghanistan football team, respectively on March 22 and March 26. Then they will play Kuwait at home and Qatar on the road. Winning against Qatar will be though, so the coach will be determined to win the previous three matches.
Moumita Dutta Mykhel
source: mykhel.com