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Both as skipper and a forward, Chhetri has delivered when it mattered on innumerable occasions. But when India take on Kyrgyzstan in the AFC Asian Cup qualifier match on March 27, the absence of India’s best forward can be regarded as a great opportunity for the rest of the strikers in the squad. It is a chance to prove their merit to head coach Stephen Constantine before the finals in 2019....

Italian World Cup Winner Fabio Cannavaro is the last defender to win the award and since then it has been all Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi barring the year 2007 when Ricardo Kaka won the silverware, also being an attacking minded player. However, any erudite or keen football fan would not fail to realise the utmost importance and significance a defender has in the modern game. Millions of dollars are being spent to lure quality strikers who have a way bigger monetary value than the defensive players but without quality defenders in a side, the team cannot go a long way in any competition....

In case you didn’t know… Sunil Chhetri currently stands fourth in the list of currently active top-scoring international players. He has 56 goals to his name and is behind Clint Dempsey, Lionel Messi, and Cristiano Ronaldo. The heart of the matter The 33-year-old will be present at the Burj Khalifa on May 4, when Asian nations find out who they will face in next year’s AFC Asian Cup. Chhetri will feature alongside Asian Football Confederation general secretary Dato Windsor John....

Past Performance: In the 2015 Asia Cup qualification matches, Yemen suffered defeats against Qatar, Bahrain, and Malaysia to end their campaign without a victory. Statistics: Yemen kick-start their Cup against top seeds Iran. Earlier, in the qualification matches, they got past Pakistan in the first round. A poor performance in the second round with just a single victory from their eight matches pushed them into the playoffs. They won both their matches against the Maldives to earn a shot into the final qualification round....

Stephen Constantine’s men now gear up to keep their 100 percent third round run intact with another win over Macau, who are currently ranked 183rd in the FIFA rankings. India, meanwhile, have had a fruitful year in terms of FIFA rankings, and September will be their fifth straight month inside the FIFA top 100 until the new set of rankings is published on 14th September. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at all the numbers you need to know ahead of the big clash on Tuesday....

ESTEGHLAL 1-0 AL AIN [Rezaei 90+2'] Iran’s Esteghlal will be delighted after grabbing a late goal in the first leg of their Round of 16 fixture against Al Ain, which will see them go to UAE with an advantage. In what turned out to be a dramatic fixture, both teams were down to 10 men and a late Kaveh Rezaei penalty ensured Esteghlal will be the happier of the two teams, going into the second leg....

Last season, Bengaluru FC had been knocked out in the Round of 16 by South China. But, this season, wins over Kitchee in the Round of 16 and the Singapore-based Rovers in the quarter-finals has given Indian football a breath of fresh air. Bengaluru were expected to be rusty when they played the Rovers, having not played competitive football since May. They were again at a disadvantage when they played the first leg behind closed doors at Kanteerava Stadium after riots in the city that week gave rise to security concerns....

After intense and eventful journeys, FC Istiklol will welcome the defending champions Air Force Club at Hisor Central Stadium in Dushanbe. Air Force Club are also looking to defend the title they won last year by beating Bengaluru FC 1-0. Only two teams have ever managed to retain the title before and Air Force Club will want to become the third team to do so. FC Istiklol, on the other hand, are looking to finally land the title after agonisingly falling short in 2015 in the final against Malaysia’s Johor Darul Ta’zim....

Danile Lalhimpuia played Doungel on who again ran past the Mohun Bagan defense before smacking it with power past Shilton Paul who seemed to be a bit off the line and failed to judge the shot. Prabir continued to plague the Blues backline as he again beat the defense for pace but the ball across the face of the goal again evaded Azharuddin at full stretch. Jeje was guilty of wasting a golden opportunity after Prabir again found him in acres of space with plenty of time but Jeje only managed to sky it from point blank range....

The tournament which started as the AFC Youth Championship in 1959, was held every year until 1978 before transitioning into a biennial event in 1980. India did not participate in the tournament in the first four editions of the Championship. 1963 was the first time they entered a team in the Championship as they crashed out in the group-stages of the tournament held in Malaysia. This was a period where there were no qualifiers played and teams participated directly in the main tournament....

These days, when people are tied to their smartphones, computers and enjoying fastest ever Internet at almost free of cost, using newspapers ads and long commercials for marketing is clearly old-school. However, if you plan to play along with technology, Affiliate Marketing can be your new money-making mechanism. What is Affiliate Marketing? Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy that involves the merchant, the affiliate, the end user and the network....

That notion evidently extends to elements of the Taliban. Mark Sedra, a Canadian expert on Afghanistan, says high-level U.S. officials, who he declined to name, admitted during a private Washington think-tank conference earlier this year that there was no purely military solution to Afghanistan’s problems and expressed a “willingness” to negotiate with “moderate” Taliban figures. Four administration officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing policy deliberations, told NEWSWEEK that Washington has already assented to efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to talk with Taliban factions that do not share the nihilist religious extremism of Supreme Leader Mullah Omar....

Their annual event, AFI Docs, will take be streamable from June 17 to 21 at docs.afi.com instead of in Washington, D.C., due to the coronavirus pandemic. Opening night will showcase Boys State, a project from Jesse Moss (Dirty Money and The Overnighters) and Amanda McBaine (The Bandit) which recently won Sundance’s Grand Jury prize. IMDb’s synopsis of the film reads that it follows “a thousand 17-year-old boys from Texas join together to build a representative government from the ground up....

The Leicester City forward dethroned Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to be named Africa Player of the Year at Thursday’s Glo-Caf gala in Abuja, having played a key role in the Foxes’ remarkable 2015-16 Premier League triumph. Mahrez scoops top personal prize While admitting pipping Aubameyang and Liverpool’s Sadio Mane to the award was no mean feat, he is hoping to help the Greens conquer the continent when Africa’s biggest football showpiece kicks off in Gabon....

The ‘Desert Warriors’ will face Kenya for their opening fixture which is scheduled for the 23rd of this month. After that, they will face the other two opponents in their group — Senegal and Tanzania — and hope to get decent results in order to secure a place in the next round. Knowing quite well that the opening game against Kenya will be very important to their chances, Algeria will approach the match with a very strong determination....

Although Delhi were bundled out for a meagre 107 runs in the first innings, their bowlers fought tooth and nail when the Punjab team came out to bat. The first two batsmen had to depart for a duck, and it was then that Yuvraj Singh finally came in to bat. For his first run, however, Yuvraj had to play as many as 28 deliveries. The star Indian batsman failed to convert his start into a big score and got out for 24 runs off 88 deliveries....

“Deceptively flattering” you might ask? We dominated the first 15 minutes versus Liverpool, but squandered our chances. The inevitable almost followed, with Liverpool breaking our suicidal high line twice. Arsene Wenger should have sent Markovic some Easter goodies. Had he completed the connection to Sterling, the Emirates crowd may have turned ugly. Admittedly, the Gunners truly put on a show after that. A couple of points to note in that performance....

MORE: Best Bengals of all time The Bengals tight end suffered an ankle injury during the game in January, which led to four months of rehab and wearing a boot for most of the summer. Even though he is recovering from the injury (the boot comes off next week) Eifert said he will never play in another Pro Bowl. Though the boot is coming off, it’s unclear when Eifert will be ready to take the field....

The odds were stacked against him, as the 0-5 Lakers embarked on a week that included games against the Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans and San Antonio Spurs. MORE: Barkley vowed not to eat | Shaq, Barkley ruin True Detective | Lakers beat Hornets | Highest-paid players Barkley’s fast did not last long, as the Lakers won their first game over the weekend against the Hornets, 107-92. Lakers big Ed Davis was all too happy to help Barkley find a meal, and he expressed that over Twitter....

For someone whose work as a computer scientist is legendary, Joy is mighty worried. To quote: “The 21st-century technologies–genetics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR)–are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses… will not require large facilities or rare raw materials… It is no exaggeration to say that we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation states....