Kolkata: For a national football team, time is usually the enemy. Players arrive from different clubs, different systems and different philosophies, train for a handful of days and are then expected to function as a cohesive unit. India have often found that the equation changes when the clock is allowed to run a little longer.
Akash Mishra certainly believes it does. “The more we get together in the camp, the more days we get, I think it will be good for us,” the India defender said ahead of Tuesday’s friendly against Uruguay at the Salt Lake stadium. “We will have to prepare according to our tactics and how we want to play. So, the bigger the camp, the better for the national team.”
There is temptation to dismiss that as the predictable preference of an international player. But there is some evidence that it’s not a wild theory. Like in 2022, when ahead of the Asian Cup qualifiers, India had an extended period together and used it to build a side that subsequently defeated Cambodia, Afghanistan and Hong Kong. That performance helped India top the group and secure qualification. Those results weren’t merely useful in isolation. They reflected a team that appeared increasingly comfortable with its roles, patterns and expectations.
Next year came another round of validation after India converted preparation time into something more tangible. The tri-series in Imphal was followed by the Intercontinental Cup in Bhubaneswar and then the SAFF Championship in Bengaluru. India won all three tournaments, beating the Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon and Kuwait along the way. By the middle of the year, they had climbed to 99 in the FIFA ranking—their first return to the top-100 since 2018.
{{/usCountry}}Next year came another round of validation after India converted preparation time into something more tangible. The tri-series in Imphal was followed by the Intercontinental Cup in Bhubaneswar and then the SAFF Championship in Bengaluru. India won all three tournaments, beating the Kyrgyz Republic, Lebanon and Kuwait along the way. By the middle of the year, they had climbed to 99 in the FIFA ranking—their first return to the top-100 since 2018.
{{/usCountry}}Despite the home advantage, India faced opposition of varying quality and benefited from a generation of players who had accumulated considerable international experience. That is particularly relevant to Khalid Jamil’s current India side because the problem is not whether individual players are good enough. It is whether players accustomed to very different club environments can quickly become one team.
As Jamil put it, “all the coaches play different formations, different tactics.” His solution is not to tell club coaches how to use their players. “For me, only see who is doing good, he will be in the team.”
This camp started in Bengaluru on September 14, giving the players an unusually long time together before they played Panama on September 26, and achieved a draw. Longer camps can sharpen a team, but there is no substitute for matches, which in this case is ISL. “You can train how much you want, but the game time, that all matters,” said Mishra. The ideal, therefore, is not camp versus competition but an aggregation of both. With ISL yet to start, India’s current camp has provided a different test, albeit an unusually severe one.
Panama, Brazil and Uruguay represent a vastly higher level of opposition than the teams India faced during the successful stretches of 2022 and 2023. A 1-1 draw with Panama was encouraging, and the 0-4 defeat by Brazil hardly a surprise, particularly given the gulf in resources and depth. The Uruguay game offers India the chance to complete the FIFA friendlies window with a performance that can make the argument for the camp more persuasive.
The short recovery window could be a problem, but Jamil didn’t seem too worried. The challenge, he feels, is maintaining concentration. “We have to keep our focus for all the 90 minutes and all the extra minutes.” That may ultimately be the most useful measure of this camp.