India’s talented defender Anwar Ali is set to miss the AFC Asian Cup which begins in Qatar on January 12.
The 23-year-old left-footed central defender, who has been a regular in the national football team coach Igor Stimac’s scheme of things, fractured his right ankle during his club Mohun Bagan Super Giant’s AFC Cup match against Bashundhara Kings on October 24. Anwar’s cast would be removed this week or early next week.
With Anwar ruled out, Stimac would be missing three of his regular players. The other two are Jeakson Singh (shoulder injury) of Kerala Blasters and Anwar’s clubmate Ashique Kuruniyan (ACL injury).
Anwar’s injury is a huge blow to Bagan as well as India. In his absence, Bagan’s defence leaked a lot of goals, including five against Odisha FC in an AFC Cup match last month. Anwar’s partnership with Sandesh Jhingan in the national team also has been one of the best things to happen to India in the recent past.
Sources said realistically Anwar should be back in the national team set-up for the World Cup Qualifiers against Afghanistan in March next year.
“It’s better to keep him for the crucial qualifying matches in March because India have a very good chance of finishing second in the group behind Kuwait,” a source told The Telegraph. Anwar will definitely return to club action before that.
The injuries to key players have only compounded Stimac’s woes. He would get hardly any time to prepare the team as the last set of ISL-X matches end on December 29.
Stimac is expected to meet the team in Doha the next day and the preparations will start from December 31. That means the Croat would not get even two weeks for an important tournament like the Asian Cup.
India, 102 in the Fifa rankings, begin their Group B campaign against Australia (25) on January 13. They next play Uzbekistan (68) on January 18 and Syria (91) five days later.
