Park? Cahill? No tension, says Subrata Pal

If Subrata Pal is nervous over the prospect of facing the likes of Manchester United and South Korea star Park Ji Sung or, for that matter, Australia’s Tim Cahill in the coming week, he is managing to hide it well.

India go into the Asian Cup after suffering a few heavy defeats and Pal, the team’s custodian, faces an uphill task — that of keeping at bay some world-class strikers. But a cool customer that he is, Pal said he was more “excited” than nervous. “No tension. They are humans, after all. I am avoiding thinking about it and not taking any stress. They are big players, no doubt. But we can give them a tough fight,” Pal told DNA from Dubai, from where the team will leave for Doha on Thursday.

The Pune FC goalkeeper said there is no point thinking about the big stars as it will add up to the pressure that is mounting on the team. “Tenth, 14th and 18th are the three dates that matter to all of us more than anything else,” he said, referring to India’s three group-stage fixtures. “Talking about Park and Cahill, they have to be good on that particular day. In football, anyone can have an off day. Whoever performs better on a given day is the winner,” Pal reasoned.

India open their campaign against tournament favourites Australia at the Al Sadd Stadium in the Qatari capital on Monday. While India’s preparations have gone from bad to worse over the last couple of months, Pal has stood out with some stellar performances against reigning Asian champions Iraq and the UAE. Even Srecko Katenic, the UAE coach, conceded, “Though the Indian team isn’t too good, the goalkeeper is brilliant.” That after the Gulf nation had beaten Bob Houghton’s boys 5-0.

But Pal’s feet are firmly on the ground. “We have reliable back-four, who are doing a great job. I have worked on improving my reflexes with the goalkeeping coach (Marcos Pacheco). Bob has been very motivating,” he said.

On the flipside, though, are the embarrassing defeats to Kuwait (1-9) and UAE, apart from numerous unimpressive results against clubs from Dubai. “Look, we have done well over the past four years. We should not go by what has happened over the last two months. The results have been a concern but it has also motivated us to train even harder,” Pal said.

With skipper Baichung Bhutia — who has been nursing different injuries for nearly six months — returning to full training, the smiles are back. “Bhai’s (Bhutia) presence makes a lot of difference. We are more confident now. We’ll take it match by match. As I said, if we are good on a particular day, we might be able to pull off an upset. And we are capable of it,” Pal said.

All Eyes on Qatar
Preparations were being finetuned on Wednesday ahead of the Asian Cup, a tournament that will test Qatar’s ability to host a big event after being awarded the 2022 World Cup.

How the organisers fare while staging such a high-profile tournament will be closely watched. The oil-rich nation was, after all, surprisingly handed hosting rights ahead of more fancied bids from Australia, Japan, South Korea and the United States.

Australia to host 2015 Asian Cup
Australia went some way to easing the pain of losing out to Qatar in the 2022 World Cup race by being awarded the 2015 Asian Cup on Wednesday.

Football Federation Australia was the sole candidate for the event but still had
to adhere to the formal bidding process by making its final presentation to the Asian
Football Confederation’s executive committee.

The lack of competition to Australia, who were granted a six-month extension last year to finalise their bid book to host the 16-team premier Asian tournament, was not a concern to AFC president Mohammed Bin Hammam.