Jay Gupta now hopes India’s unprecedented footballing rendezvous with five-time world champions Brazil can spark a similar revolution for the sport. “Just like, for example, before Mr. Kapil Dev’s 1983 World Cup triumph against all odds opened the doors for cricket to become a phenomenon in India. The Khalid Jamil-coached side will take on Brazil and Uruguay in back-to-back friendlies at Kolkata’s Salt Lake Stadium on October 3 and 6 respectively, marking an unprecedented high for Indian football.
Kapil Dev brought the World Cup home and he started the revolution, we are looking to show our calibre and basically start one of our own here and build from that,” Gupta told reporters on the sidelines of India’s training session here.
“We’re all very excited after the game we had against Panama. A lot of confidence in the group and we want to take it forward into this next one. “We definitely would love to be able to score against Brazil, obviously.
Because we are knocking at the door of five-time World Cup champions, trying to show that we also have the calibre to be able to push for those accolades that they are holding, being five-time World Cup champions, “At this moment, I feel really lucky to be able to be part of this squad. I think it’s more about taking it minute by minute, to be able to understand the game in the first 15 and more importantly, to be able to execute what the coach wants, exactly how we tried to do in the last game.
“I don’t think any player on the team needs any extra motivation to prepare. We just want to start our training sessions here and get doing to what the coach wants us to do every training session and reach there and then it’s going to be just playing for our dream.
“Our analyst team is always working towards getting us all the footage and keeping us updated with what’s been happening recently,” said Gupta. “For me, it’ll be one of the best learning curves and that’s what I’m really looking forward to in this game, to be able to understand how to approach these situations and at the end of the day, improve and do it in my own life.”
