This was a commendable result, and perhaps, a timely morale boost for a team that was playing with a new coach at the helm, Khalid Jamil. But as the team sets sights on the upcoming trip to Singapore for an AFC Asian Cup qualification match, the pressure is back on.

Former India captain Bhaichung Bhutia said he is optimistic. “For Khalid, (CAFA Cup) being his first tournament, he’s done pretty well,” Bhutia said about his former teammate, who became the first Indian since 2012 to be named men’s national team head coach.

“It’s going to be tough. But Khalid, he’s known to have results. What you don’t expect, he gets it. And then suddenly when you expect and he doesn’t get it. With Khalid, I’ve been seeing him in the Indian Super League as well, there are always big surprises. But also big disappointments. The first match (at CAFA Cup) was against a good team (Tajikistan), he won. Then against Afghanistan, bad performance, and goalless. He’ll have to bring in that consistency.”

The Indian team, ranked 133 in the world at the time (they are 134 now), began their campaign with a 2-1 win over world No.106 Tajikistan, and then were handed a 3-0 defeat by Iran. In the final group game, they were held to a 0-0 draw by world No.161 Afghanistan.

However, in the third-place match, they managed to beat Oman on penalties – India’s first-ever win over the Gulf nation in 11 meetings.

Bhutia asserted that the team can take some confidence from the tournament, but they need to look at far greater targets.

“We’ve been playing Merdeka Cup, Nehru Cup, Gold Cup, SAFF Cup… these are tournaments we’ve been playing in for 50 years, we’ve won and we’ve lost,” Bhutia said in Mumbai on Saturday, where he launched the second season of the SFL Football League, a grassroots competition.

“Our main target is to qualify for the Asian Cup regularly. This year is going to be tough because we are in a difficult situation (with the ISL season being delayed).

“When you are in the Asian Cup regularly, and hopefully one day when we qualify for a FIFA World Cup, the entire structure, system and environment is going to change in Indian football. The setup, the mindset, the interest is going to go up. The main focus is to one day qualify for the World Cup. But at least start qualifying for the Asian Cup regularly.”

India qualified for successive Asian Cup finals in 2019 and 2023 for the first time but the campaign to qualify for the 2027 Asian Cup has not gone well.

In the third round of qualification, India were held 0-0 at home by Bangladesh and then beaten by a late goal in their trip to Hong Kong in June. They are at the bottom of the four-team group which also includes leaders Singapore. Only the winners go through to the 2027 finals in Saudi Arabia.

The results under former head coach Manolo Marquez were poor but the players have not been helped by the delay in the start to the season.

Invitation to bid documents for ISL are likely to be issued by the end of this month or early October. Once the new commercial partners for the league, which will have promotion and relegation, are on board, it will take around two months to put things in place. Before that, AIFF plans to start the season from October 25 with its cup competition, Super Cup.

“I’ve been fighting to have a constitution in the last three years. If we had that, we wouldn’t have come into this situation. It’s just that the case got delayed somewhere. Finally it has come,” said Bhutia, referring to the Supreme Court’s judgment on the AIFF constitution on Friday..

“It is a difficult situation, but hopefully now with the judgement coming and the constitution to be accepted in the next four weeks, and AIFF has given a statement that they’re going to host ISL, things are back on track. It will take a little time. This year will be more challenging.”

Sandhu joins

HTC adds: Gurpreet Singh Sandhu has joined the preparatory camp for the qualifier against Singapore on October 9, which began in Bengaluru on Saturday. The India No.1 is the only player so far to have been released by Bengaluru FC (BFC) so far. This happened following a conversation between the national team staff and the club to release one or two senior players from the seven that have been called by Jamil. With BFC beginning pre-seasons on September 16, the outfield players, including Sunil Chhetri, have not been released but Sandhu was.