“You can train how much you want, but at the end of the day, it is about the matches. The more games you play, I think that will help the players.”
Akash Mishra’s words ring true even three days after India’s friendly window against Panama, Brazil and Uruguay came to an end. The games against Brazil and Uruguay exposed just how unforgiving the highest level can be, while also underlining the India defender’s point about the need for more matches.
India drew 1-1 with Panama, lost 4-0 to Brazil and then went down 6-1 to Uruguay, conceding 11 goals across the two matches against the South American heavyweights.
The results themselves were hardly a surprise. Brazil and Uruguay arrived with players accustomed to a speed, technical quality and competitive pressure that Indian footballers simply do not encounter often enough. What was more revealing was how the games changed. India could stay in the contest for periods, frustrate Brazil for much of the opening half-hour and even level against Uruguay through Anirudh Thapa, but once the opposition found another gear, the margin for error reduced significantly.
If the results were unforgiving, the decision to host this block of three matches was not controversy-free either. The AIFF withdrew from the inaugural FIFA ASEAN Cup because its schedule clashed with the friendlies, giving up a tournament that would have offered competitive matches for the national team.
Instead, India played three exhibition games, with the federation spending crores to bring overseas teams to India at a time when Indian football was already dealing with financial constraints.
But that does not make the friendlies a mistake. India needed to see this level, because playing only opposition closer to their own ranking will not prepare them for the football they ultimately want to play. Mishra had made that point before the window began, when he said India could not approach these matches simply as a learning exercise.
“These are international friendlies, nation versus nation, so we cannot go there only to learn. We have to fight against them and give our best.”
The bigger question is what India do with those lessons once the international window closes. Because while Brazil and Uruguay brought the glamour, the attention and the chance to measure India against the highest level, the ASEAN Cup would have offered something less glamorous but equally important: repetition.
A tournament asks players to carry one performance into the next, with recovery, adjustment, selection pressure and another opponent arriving before the previous result has properly settled. That repetition would have mattered for a team entering the international window without a competitive domestic season behind it.
The decision, then, should not be reduced to a choice between glamour and substance. India need both. They need the nights that put Brazil on the other side of the pitch, but they also need enough football in between for those nights to be more than an occasional glimpse of how far away the top level remains.
India may now have something that can provide that repetition on a more sustained basis: the rebranded Indian Super League.
INDIAN PLAYERS WERE NOT MATCH READY
Some might say the gap between India and the top opposition was expected. But how many competitive matches had these players actually played in the months before facing Brazil and Uruguay?
The 2025-26 ISL season did not even begin until February after the board ran into legal troubles.
Each team had just 13 league matches, producing 91 games across the entire season, with no return fixtures and a campaign compressed into a few months.
Thirteen league matches is a remarkably small amount of competitive football for a professional player, particularly in a country where the ISL remains the principal route through which many of the national team’s regulars accumulate top-flight minutes. A 13-game league leaves very little room for players to develop through a season.
That is also why reducing the argument to match fitness misses something important. More games build the instinctive decisions that come from repeatedly being placed in situations where the next pass, run or defensive action carries a consequence. Training can rehearse those moments, but competitive football is where they become instinct.
India saw that against Brazil and Uruguay. Uruguay, in particular, were able to turn a contest India had managed to stay in for an hour into a 6-1 defeat.
Jamil’s assessment after that game was revealing without being an excuse.
“From all the matches you have seen, the first 30 minutes were okay. After that, maybe fitness was an issue, or concentration. There are many things. During the game, after that period, and then again around the 60th or 70th minute, I could see more problems. We have to think about that and address it next time.”
It would be wrong to turn that into a neat explanation for the result. But when the national coach identifies a pattern that emerges as a match progresses, the environment in which those players prepare week after week inevitably becomes part of the discussion.
LOOK AT THE TEAMS INDIA FACED
The contrast becomes more striking when you look at the football happening around the players India were facing.
Brazil’s Serie A had already completed 28 rounds by the time Brazil played India on October 3. The 29th round was scheduled for October 7 and 8, after the India game. Uruguay’s Clausura, meanwhile, had completed its ninth round by October 5, the day before Uruguay faced India in Kolkata.
Those figures do not mean every Brazil or Uruguay international had played 28 or nine club matches, particularly with many of them based overseas. They do, however, give a sense of the competitive environments surrounding those national teams. Their international players were coming into the window from football seasons that were already well underway, rather than from a long spell of preparation waiting for the domestic calendar to begin.
Uruguay had also played Japan and South Korea on their Asian tour before meeting India, beating South Korea 4-1 after losing 3-1 to Japan. Brazil had played Australia twice during their tour before facing India. Neither comparison is directly equivalent to India’s domestic calendar, but both underline the rhythm surrounding the opposition.
India’s players, meanwhile, were still waiting for their domestic season to begin.
Jamil has now called for more time together after the Uruguay defeat.
“We need to have more camps. I think all the players are at a similar level, but we have to choose the best ones. There are matches coming up, and we will see who performs the best. This is the start of the season, and we are also playing against New Zealand next.”
Camps can improve understanding and sharpen a game plan, but they cannot replicate the pressure and unpredictability of a league match every few days. For most of these players, that work has to begin again with their clubs.
THE 2026-27 ISL HAS TO MATTER
The 2026-27 ISL will start on October 10 with 13 clubs and a return to the home-and-away format. Every club will play each of the other 12 teams twice, giving each side 24 league matches.
For Indian football, that is more than a fixture-list correction. It is an opportunity to restore some of the competitive rhythm that was lost last season.
Twenty-four league matches still do not put the ISL in the same category as the world’s biggest domestic competitions, particularly once cup and continental football are taken into account. But it gives players far more room to develop through the season. Coaches have a larger body of performances from which to select the national team, young players have more opportunities to establish themselves and clubs have more time to build relationships.
The November international window will offer an early indication of whether that makes a difference. India are due to face New Zealand in Auckland on November 12 and Christchurch on November 15, giving Jamil another opportunity to test his side against a team that featured at the 2026 World Cup. This time, India’s players should arrive with competitive club football behind them rather than still waiting for their domestic season to begin.
But the ISL cannot carry the entire burden.
BUILD THE SYSTEM, NOT JUST THE FIXTURE
Diego Forlan, who played for Mumbai City in the 2016 ISL and returned to India this month as Uruguay’s head coach, was speaking about the same issue from a different end of the football pyramid.
“You need to build from the roots, academies, young players, kids to start playing a lot. If you build more academies, the league gets stronger and stronger, you will achieve getting more players and getting better players, that’s for sure.”
That is why the league discussion cannot stop at the ISL. A stronger second tier, better academies and a more reliable pathway for young players all feed into the same objective. The national team needs more players competing seriously for places, rather than the same group being asked to carry every international window.
The big games and the domestic league are not competing ideas. One tells you the standard, while the other has to provide the repetitions required to move towards it.
India have spent years searching for moments that make football feel bigger. The next stage is making sure those moments are connected to what happens on an ordinary Saturday night in the league.
BIG FRIENDLIES STILL HAVE A PLACE
The Brazil match showed that India can make a world-class side uncomfortable for stretches. The Uruguay game showed how quickly that can disappear when the opposition finds space and India lose control of the contest. Thapa’s equaliser was a genuine moment of quality and belief, but Uruguay’s response was just as instructive. Within minutes, the game had moved away from India again.
Jamil certainly has not suggested that these fixtures should be abandoned. Even after the 6-1 defeat, he defended the decision to play Brazil and Uruguay.
“Whatever was decided was done collectively. We should not say that these were bad fixtures just because the results did not go in our favour. If the results had been good, we would have said these were necessary fixtures. But, yes, we need to play against big teams and good teams.”
That is the important distinction. India did not learn that they should stop playing the best teams available. They learnt how much more work has to happen before they play them again.
And that work begins on October 10.
The ISL cannot be expected to close the gap to Brazil or Uruguay on its own, nor can 24 league matches suddenly turn India into a different national team. What it can provide is a sustained run of competitive football in which players can make mistakes, respond to them, earn places, lose places, build partnerships and improve without waiting for the next international window to provide the next meaningful test.
– Ends
