India meet China after two decades

We are fully aware that China are a big side in the region. They will be a very difficult side. They always want to play attacking football. S CONSTANTINE, India head coach

SUZHOU: Billion-plus populations but laggards in a truly global sport — India and China will go head to head in a football friendly for the first time in 21 years on Saturday with the home team a firm favourite despite poor recent form. The Indian team is playing an international match for the first time in China though their senior sides have faced each other 17 times in the past. China have played in India seven times, all of them in the invitational tournament Nehru Cup. India have not won a single match out of the 17 while China have won on 12 occasions.

Five matches have ended in draws. The senior teams of India and China last played in the 1997 Nehru Cup in Kochi which the ‘Red Dragons’ won 2-1.

Saturday’s match at Suzhou, around 100 km from Shanghai, will see Sandesh Jhingan captaining the Indian side. The game has attracted a lot of interest among football fans and the media in the backdrop of competition between the two countries in several spheres as well as the fact that they are playing a football match for the first time after 1997.

Neighbours India and China account for one-third of the world’s population and they are the fastest growing and competing economies in the world but they have remained “sleeping giants” with nothing much to show at the world stage. SELECTIONS

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