Khalidball makes instant impact as India begin new era by beating Tajikistan

Score off two set-pieces, defend cross after cross and put your bodies on the line in front of goal. And if all that fails, have the goalkeeper who make a few saves. Football is a simple game, if you're playing it in a Khalid Jamil team. India's senior men's national team found that out in their first game under Jamil, as they beat Tajikistan 2-1 in their opening match of CAFA Nations Cup at Hisor on Friday night.

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It was by no means a vintage performance, in the sense that you'd normally use it in a footballing context. When the context is Khalid Jamil, the word that youth these days would use is 'heritage'.

It's very simple to say that Jamil's style of football is boring. For a national team as lowly as India are, that is exactly what you need. Jamil knows how to organise a defence. He knows how to set up teams to soak up minutes and minutes of pressure. He knows how to set up teams to counter-attack. India did all that for varying lengths of time, but the biggest punches they threw came in the opening 13 minutes.

India maximise set-piece strength

When Rahul Bheke was picked at right-back and Muhammed Uvais at left-back, it was clear that set-pieces, particularly long throws, would be a way for India to try and hurt Tajikistan on Friday.

Uvais is cut from that Rory Delap cloth. He can hurl a football a mean distance, and at a flat trajectory that can send defences around for a spin. Tajikistan found that out the hard way. Muhriddin Hasanov came rushing off his goal-line, only to flap at that ball, Anwar Ali won the first header. After a couple of ricochets, the ball came back to Anwar for another header, this time he put it on target and wheeled away in celebration.

Eight minutes later, Anwar would turn provider, of sorts. This time Uvais decided to play a one-two with a short throw-in. The plan was to cross to Anwar at the back-post, but he overhit it. Anwar kept the ball alive, and he played a pin-point cross that Bheke headed from point-blank range to force a save from Hasanov, but Jhingan was there to tap the rebound home.

A team that struggled so much in their last two games against Bangladesh and Hong Kong and ended up not scoring a single goal in those, was now 2-0 up in Tajikistan against the hosts. No pretty patterns, no passing football, good old set-pieces. It's why teams practice them so much, it's why teams analyse them so much, it's why so much time and effort go into them.

Did those 13 minutes where India scored twice mean they were a superior side to Tajikistan, in the traditional sense? No, but they'd found a way. They found a method that suited their strength and were ruthless. It's what Manolo Marquez and Igor Stimac spent months trying to figure out. What are India's strengths and how to play to them?

After his first training camp, Jamil has figured out the strengths of this team. There's height in this team, there's long throws, there's combat, there's pace up front. So, they defend deep, stay well-organised, spring on quick breaks, and use set-pieces to their advantage.

Big Gurpreet decision pays off

We knew all that about Jamil anyway, he has always been a maximiser of available resources. But how did Jamil work out the decision to bring Gurpreet Singh Sandhu back in goal? He hadn't played the last three international matches, he'd been dropped from the squad, he hadn't played club football since, but here he was, back as India's no.1, back as India's captain.

Coming off the back of his worst ISL season, Gurpreet went to Norway in the off-season to train with his former club Stabaek and later found time to train in Bengaluru with India's age-group teams. He wanted to find a way out of his rut. Based on the evidence of these 90 minutes, he has slapped that rut away.

He was decisive in coming off his line to punch set-pieces away, he showed strong wrists to make big saves from open play and he saved a penalty. It was perfect. The loud Gurpreet that organises his defence when he's feeling good about himself was back. That had gone missing during his nightmare last ISL season with Bengaluru FC.

Start as you mean to go on

Is it sustainable for India to defend as deep as they did in the second half? Can they afford to do that for such a long period of time against better opposition, like Iran, who they face on Monday? There's not a definitive answer to that, but that is the method. This is how India will play under Jamil, particularly when they take early leads like the one they did in this match.

Tougher tests await, one win doesn't mean that the Indian men's national team is back. Far from it.

If first impressions are the most lasting impressions, then Khalid Jamil has made a pretty good one in his first game as India boss. This is a team that he can now put his stamp on. To get a win early in his tenure was going to be paramount. If nothing else, it buys him some time, as he sets about making this his team, and trying to win over again a fanbase that has become accustomed to watching a team without an identity.

This is how India will play. It won't be pretty. On some days, you'll wonder if maybe the coach got too defensive. But get used to it. This is Khalidball.