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The India Men’s Football team will host neighbours Bangladesh in their opening Group C encounter of the AFC Asian Cup 2027 Qualifiers third round at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Shillong on Tuesday.
The India vs Bangladesh football match in the AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers will start at 7:00 PM Indian Standard Time (IST) and will be available to watch on live streaming and live telecast.
India will go into the match on a high, having beaten the Maldives 3-0 in an international friendly at the same venue last week to register their first international win in 489 days and also the maiden victory under head coach Manolo Márquez.
The triumph coincided with captain Sunil Chetri’s return to the national team. The 40-year-old, the fourth-highest goal scorer in international football, had retired from national duties last year but reversed his decision ahead of the Maldives game.
Chhetri scored his 95th goal in the match against Maldives with Rahul Bheke’s header and Liston Colaco’s header capping off the win.
Interestingly, Chhetri has scored six of India’s last seven goals against Bangladesh and even netted in the last senior-level meeting between the two sides – a 1-1 draw in the 2021 SAFF Championships.
World No. 126 India sit 59 places ahead of Bangladesh in the FIFA men’s team rankings.
India vs Bangladesh football head-to-head
The IND vs BAN football head-to-head record also heavily favours India, who have won 14 and lost just four matches against Bangladesh. The remaining 10 of the two team’s 28 encounters have ended in draws.
In fact, Bangladesh’s last victory over India came more than two decades ago, with a 2-1 extra-time win in the 2003 SAFF Championship semi-final in Dhaka. The Blue Tigers, however, have never lost to the Bengal Tigers on
home soil.
The Bangladesh football team coached by Spaniard Javier Cabrera, however, has landed in Shillong this time with an ace up their sleeves in Hamza Choudhury.
A midfielder, the 27-year-old Hamza Choudhury is a former England youth international who recently pledged his allegiance to his mother’s homeland and was fast-tracked into the national team.
Besides Bangladesh and India, Hong Kong China and Singapore are the other two teams in Group C for the third round of the AFC Asian Cup 2027 Qualifiers.
This is the final round of the qualifiers with 24 teams competing for the remaining six spots at the AFC Asian Cup 2027, which is scheduled in Saudi Arabia.
The teams have been divided into six pools of four each and after home-away format double-headed round robin matches, the group winners will qualify for the main event.
Buzz about Hamza Choudhary
“You can’t compare Sunil Chhetri to Hamza. Sunil has done great things for India, but let’s be honest, Hamza is a Premier League player.”
From the time it was announced that India would be grouped with Bangladesh in the 2027 Asian Cup qualifiers, the buzz has largely revolved around one name – Hamza Choudhury.
The 27-year-old, a Leicester City academy product who played over 90 games for the former Premier League champions and is currently on loan at Sheffield Wednesday in the Championship, was born to a Grenadian father and a Bangladeshi mother and decided to take up a Bangladesh passport in 2024.
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