Should India play Belarus, fellow aggressor in the Ukraine invasion, in the football friendly at Bahrain on Saturday? One is still not sure where to stand on this. The Indian national team, ranked 104 in the world, is generally so starved of any international action that anything that comes its way is welcome, and thus the mind says, 'Go ahead, in any case sports and politics shouldn't mix.' But the heart tugs you back to our time-tested, perhaps forgotten concepts of solidarity.
India coach Igor Stimac, a former Croatian international who himself would have witnessed conflict in the 1990s Yugoslav war, and his team have been granted two friendlies – hosts Bahrain and Belarus on a neutral venue – as preparation for the 2023 Asian Cup qualifiers starting in June this year. In another world, this would have meant invaluable exposure and can still prove to be, but also these are different times.
