The Indian football team's 1-2 loss to tiny Guam, 33 places below them in the FIFA rankings, in their World Cup qualifier recently was enough to set the alarm bells ringing.


Sunil Chhetri at a city event yesterday. Pic/Shadab Khan 

While the defeat was blamed on a host of reasons from the travel time taken to get to the country (16 hours), to the artificial pitch, to the number of inexperienced players being picked in the side (13 debutants across four matches). However, the loss can primarily be attributed to a lack of friendlies, according to India captain Sunil Chhetri.