Three Friendlies, Three World Cup nations: Five lessons for Indian Football

India conceded 11 goals in three games in the September-October international break. Just a month ago, the Indian national team were heading into an incredibly exciting September-October international window, where the Blue Tigers were all set to face three World Cup-playing nations in the form of Panama, Brazil and Uruguay.

Now, all three games have come to an end, and Indian football fans have been left with far more positives and excitement for the times ahead. Khalid Jamil's side started the window with their best result of the three games, securing a 1-1 draw against Panama in Bengaluru.

They built on that performance with a decent 0-4 loss against Brazil, where they tried to play positively and go on the front foot whenever they won the ball. India's first half against Uruguay was even better, with Anirudh Thapa scoring against a 20th-ranked team when no one expected it.

However, the second half went south as they eventually suffered a 6-1 defeat. If you look at all three friendlies and say Indian football has regressed further, you are not a real Indian football fan, but rather one of those who predicted India would concede 20+ goals across the three games.

For those who have followed the lows of the Indian senior team ever since the 2023 SAFF Championship triumph, these three games have given more hope to look forward to than the last three years have. At the same time, the games have also taught a lot of lessons to these players and coaches, who are testing themselves at this big stage for the first time in their careers.

Let's take a look at the five lessons we learned from these friendlies, something that we must work on or be proud of going into the upcoming camps. Time to move on from more regulars from the past During the friendly match played between India and Panama, held at Sree Kanteerava Stadium, Bangalore, on September 25th 2026 Photos: Rajesh G / AIFF When Khalid Jamil announced the squad for these three games, he raised a lot of eyebrows by dropping key players from the past, with the likes of Sandesh Jhingan, Rahul Bheke, Nikhil Poojary and Lallianzuala Chhangte among the prominent players who were dropped from the NT set-up.

And what this international window proved is that the head coach must show the same ruthlessness towards some of the players still in the NT set-up. For example, the likes of Ashique Kuruniyan and Gurpreet Singh, who started all three games, failed to impress in any of them barring the Panama game.

Sahal, as well, failed to impact the games he played, barring a couple of flicks and nutmegs here and there. The likes of Farukh Choudhary, Vikram Partap Singh and Rahim Ali were given further opportunities to prove themselves with minutes off the bench but failed to seize their opportunities in the same way Mohammad Sanan, Ricky Shabong and Jay Gupta did.

One mistake is all elite teams need to punish you Uruguay's Darwin Nunez scores from the penalty spot against India (Courtesy: Trisham Das/Khel Now) While India are used to playing and losing against a lot of nations that are in and around them in the rankings, they were not punished as heavily as they were by the Brazilian and Uruguayan national teams. Losing games or dropping points by not scoring goals is nothing new, however, these two games exposed how bad India's defensive set-up can be when it comes to playing out from the back or dealing with silly concentration errors here and there.