India football coach Stimac releases 6 players from camp

New Delhi (PTI): Indian football team's national coach Igor Stimac on Monday released six players from the list of 37 who had assembled for the preparatory camp, which kicked-off on May 21 here in the capital.

Vishal Kaith, Germanpreet Singh, Nandha Kumar, Redeem Tlang, Bikramjit Singh, and Sumeet Passi are the ones who have been released ahead of the King's Cup, to be held in Buriram, Thailand from June 5-8.

"I am very happy with the efforts put in by all the players till now. There is a serious competition to get into that final list of 23 who would be representing the country in the King's Cup.

"We have released 6 players who are to go back. Each one of them has been given an individual working programme which is to be executed in the future by themselves in an attempt to improve on their fitness, and technical, and tactical abilities," Stimac, who was a part of Croatia's 1998 World Cup squad that finished third in France, added. The 51-year-old, who had guided Croatia to World Cup as a coach, said he has informed players as well as the staff about "expectations for the following week".

"We have accomplished Phase-1 on our working programme. We have had meetings with the staff, players about their work accomplishments till today. We have informed them about expectations for the following week," the coach revealed.

The Indian team has been preparing for the King's Cup, a FIFA-sanctioned International 'A' tournament being organised by the Football Association of Thailand since 1968. India's previous participation in the King's Cup were in 1977 and 1981.

India will play their first match against Curacao on June 5, with hosts Thailand taking on Vietnam in the other match on the same day. The winners of both the matches qualify for the final, while the two others teams would be playing the play-off for the 3rd spot on June 8.