The Indian football team will have to face strong teams like Qatar, Kuwait, and Afghanistan or Mongolia in the 2026 Fifa World Cup qualifiers round-2. The draw has been released on Thursday. 

India had played against Qatar last in 2021 in the same World Cup qualifying match and lost by a solitary goal. Two years ago, in 2019 in the World Cup qualifying match, the senior national team forced Qatar to play out a goalless draw. Their meeting with Kuwait is also memorable as defeating them in the penalty shoot-out in the SAFF Championship final Sunil Chhetri-led Indian team clinched the title last month. 

Talking about India's recent record against Afghanistan both the countries played 9 Games since 2006. India won 4 games (Total goals 11, PPG 1.2), Afghanistan won 1 (Total goals 6, PPG 0.7), and drew 4.

However, the AIFF president Kalyan Chaubey has thanked Union sports minister Anurag Thakur for the national football team's clearance to the Hangzhou Asian Games scheduled to be held in September this year. 

After the Union sports ministry rejected the Federation's appeal to send the national football team to the Asian Games the AIFF president took a whole-hearted drive, convincing the Union sports minister about the need of sending the Indian team following their success of winning three consecutive international tournaments within a last couple of months.

 The uncertainty prevailed for some days before the Union Sports Ministry responded to AIFF's appeal and cleared the Indian football team for the Games although Parallel Sports broke the news first, revealing Indian football team would be cleared for the Games.

Significantly, national football team has been grouped with China, Myanmar and Bangladesh in the Asian Games. Chief national coach Igor Stimac has twitted, ‘The match against China i going to be very competitive. They are strong team. But I hope our boys will be able to outplay Bangladesh and Myanmar to ensure second spot in the group. Bangladesh and Myanmar, both the teams are similar in strength. But they should not be underestimated at all.’