India's Nehru Cup campaign begins tomorrow

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New Delhi, Aug 16: India would look for a rare title victory when the five-nation ONGC Nehru Cup International Invitational tournament begins tomorrow with the hosts taking on inexperienced Cambodia in the inaugural match at Ambedkar Stadium here.

Though the tournament, to be inaugurated by President Pratibha Patil, has lost much of the sheen after Asian powerhouse Iran snubbed AIFF by insisting on sending a club side, it has provided a ''realistic chance'' to the hosts to win an international trophy after nearly two years.

Syria, at 113rd in FIFA rankings, are the frontrunners but they have left behind four regulars for the Olympic qualifiers against Bahrain on August 22, besides two key players who are playing in Kuwait and Jordan have not been released by their clubs.

Kyrgyzstan (152nd), who are ahead of India (162nd) in FIFA chart, did not bring 10 of their national players due to club engagements while Cambodia (170th) are the least experienced side.

Neighbours Bangladesh (172nd), whom out of the other four teams India have played most frequently, are also a depleted side, with almost half of their national side gone for the Merdeka Cup from August 21 to 29 in Kuala Lumpur.

This gave the Indians a chance to win a title after 2005 SAFF Games victory in Karachi. Moreover, the country would be deseperately needing to start with some success to get a headstart to AIFF's grand vision to take Indian football ahead.

Coach Bob Houghton is looking this tournament to take India higher in FIFA rankings and instill the much-needed confidence among his boys which, he said, comes only from success at the international level.

''You need some success to instill confidence. You need to win matches at the international level to build confidence. This is the real chance and the boys are confident of doing well in the tournament,'' Houghton said at a pre-tournament press conference here.

The Englishman said that was the reason why India did not play top Portuguese clubs like Benfica in the Portugal tour.

''We needed wins to begin with. We thought that would be the fair chance to assess our strength (by not playing Portuguese premier division sides).

''We had a good preparation to this tournament. We had spent lots of time together in training (in Gurgaon). The team is well organised and the boys know their own and each other's responsibilities in the team,'' he added.

Captain Baichung Bhutia echoed this coach's view when he said ''We have a realistic chance to win this tournament.'' ''I am not saying that it would be easy task to win the tournament. But the boys are confident after a productive training stint and the Portugal tour.

We know we have a good chance to win,'' he said.

''The boys have full of confidence now as a unit and as individual players. Each player now knows his responsibilty in his position. He also knows the other player's responsibilty. That is the best thing to happen in Indian team after a long time,'' he said.

Baichung, however, was at pains to drive home that the boys have to work hard and could not take any opponent lightly.

''No team can be taken lightly. Tomorrow, we have a task at hand to win against Cambodia. We cannot take them lightly,'' Baichung added.

UNI