India women's national football team

India

Nickname(s)	The Blue Tigresses
Association	All India Football Federation
Confederation	AFC (Asia)
Sub-confederation	SAFF (South Asia)
Head coach	Thomas Dennerby
Captain	Loitongbam Ashalata Devi
Most caps	Oinam Bembem Devi (85)
Top scorer	Bala Devi (52)[1][2]
FIFA code	IND
First colours Second colours
FIFA ranking
Current	55 2 (10 December 2021)[3]
Highest	49[4] (December 2013)
Lowest	92[4] (September 2009)
First international
India 5–0 Singapore  (Hong Kong; 7 June 1981)
Biggest win
India 18–0 Bhutan  (Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh; 13 December 2010)
Biggest defeat
China PR 16–0 India  (Bangkok, Thailand; 11 December 1998)
Asian Cup
Appearances	9 (first in 1980)
Best result	Runners-up (1980 and 1983)
SAFF Women's Championship
Appearances	5 (first in 2010)
Best result	Champions (2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2019)
Medal record Asian Cup 1980 India 1983 Thailand 1981 Hong Kong SAFF Women's Championship 2010 Bangladesh 2012 Sri Lanka 2014 Pakistan 2016 India 2019 Nepal South Asian Games 2010 Dhaka Team 2016 Guwahati & Shillong Team 2019 Kathmandu & Pokhara Team

The India women's national football team is controlled by the All India Football Federation and represents India in women's international football competitions. The women's team resumed playing on 7 September 2012 after nearly a year-long hiatus.^[5] Under the global jurisdiction of FIFA and governed in Asia by the AFC, India is also part of the South Asian Football Federation. The team was one of the best in Asia in the mid 1970s to early 1980s, when they became runners-up in the 1979 and the 1983 AFC Women's Asian Cup.

The women's national team is yet to participate in the FIFA Women's World Cup and the Olympic Games. Present ranking of the team according to FIFA Women's World Rankings is 57 and 11 among the Asian countries.

History[]

1970–2009: rise and fall[]

Football for women in Asia started later compared to their male counterparts. The seed of women's football in India was planted in the early 1970s. The first manager was Sushil Bhattacharya, in 1975^[6][7] and from 1975 till 1991, the administration of the game was in the hands of the Women's Football Federation of India (WFFI) which comes under the Asian Ladies' Football Confederation (ALFC) that had recognition from neither FIFA nor AFC (Asian Football Confederation). Both organizations continuously tried to dissuade Asian countries from sending teams to these tournaments for which the first few editions of AFC Women's Asian Cup other unofficial tournaments seen very few teams to participate and thus the 1980 Calicut edition of Asian Championship featured two Indian teams (India N & India S), Western Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia.^[8] India did well enough in all these unofficial tournaments under Sushil Bhattacharya and India S become runners-up at Calicut. In the next edition of 1981 India achieved third position, defeated by Thailand and again became runners-up in the 1983 edition losing to Thailand again. This was the best chapter for the Indian women team in the Asian platform as since 1983 the performance declined along with mismanagement in the federation and failing to promote the games at all level in every state of India. The game was administered by WFFI from 1975 until the early 1990s, when they were absorbed into the AIFF as despite their impressive display at the Asian level, women's football in India went into the state of gloom by the end of the eighties due to the previous federation failure of promoting the women's football to the level it had deserved.^[9]

But the AIFF too did very less to lift the women's football from their meager condition. It was the time when FIFA conceptualized and organised FIFA Women's World Cup in 1991 and International Olympic Committee started the women's competition at 1996 Summer Olympics. Time and again, the AIFF officials stated that lifting the standard of women's football to the level of their Asian counterparts was their chief aim but they never backed up their words with actions. AIFF was treating women's football as an extra burden was a fact which was hidden from no one but it became evident when they failed to sponsor the team's first foreign trip in 1997 to Germany before the Asian Championships. Eventually, the trip was made possibly with the help of the German Football Association and NRI's living in Germany.^[10]

1998 Asian Games was first participation for the national team but came out to be nightmare as they defeated by Chinese Taipei with a score line of 1–13 in the second match and again on the 3rd match they faced the biggest defeat in the history by China PR with an embarrassing scoreline of 0–16.

The women's game reached a new low in June 2009 when FIFA delisted the side from its world rankings for being out of action for more than 18 months.^[11] From 1991 to 2010 the performance of the Indian team was very poor, participating in just 5 editions of Asian Championships, 2003 as their last participation in which they faced a repeated embarrassing defeat with 0–12 scoreline from China PR. FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympics participation is yet be a reality for the Indian team.

2010–present[]

After 2009 sanction by FIFA, the AIFF started to put their minds in place to better the condition of the national team and women's football, which led to commencing SAFF Women's Championship and also including women's football in the South Asian Games. Indian team earn massive success in SAFF competitions. Winning the SAFF Women's Championship four times in row without losing a single game. Additionally they won two gold medals at South Asian Games.

On 17 December 2014, AIFF Secretary Kushal Das stated that the goal for women's football from 2014 to 2017 was to increase the ranking of the India senior team to the top 40s and the top 8 in Asia, start a professional women's league by 2015, and to qualify for both the U19 and U16 versions of the AFC championships.^[12] which is now far from reality as India is 60th by FIFA World Rankings and 13th among the Asian countries and yet to qualify for AFC Women's Asian Cup since 2003, FIFA Women's World Cup and Olympic Games.

They participated in the qualifiers for the 2012 Olympics in March 2011. In their first match they beat rivals and group hosts Bangladesh 3–0. In the second round India Women played Uzbekistan where they tied the first match 1–1 but lost the second leg 1–5 and were officially knocked out. Again for Rio 2016 Olympics they participated in the AFC qualifiers, first match was a win defeating Sri Lanka with score 4–1 then shocking defeat from Myanmar with a score line 0–7 which led the way out from the qualifiers.

India participated for the second time at the Asian games in 2014, but the condition was not better than the previous participation, 16 years back in 1998. Though India defeated Maldives easily with 15–0 score, but a similar fate of Maldives was faced by them in the next two matches where they were defeated by both South Korea and Thailand with the same score of 0–10.

In August 2018, Indian women national team was invited to participate in Cotif Tournament where clubs and national and autonomous teams participate every year since 1984, held at Valencia, Spain. 2018 Cotif was 35th Anniversary of the tournament.^[13] At this tournament they faced 3 Spanish club teams and Morocco. First lost to Fundación Albacete, 1–4, then to Levante UD, 0–5, then the Moroccan side defeated India with a score 5–1, but on the last match India played with maturity, though lost to Madrid CFF with 0–1 score.

In November 2018, India qualified to the second round of 2020 AFC Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament for the first time since the qualifying tournament started for the 2008 Summer Olympics.^[14][15]

For preparation of 2020 Olympics 2nd round qualifiers India played two matches each against Hong Kong and Indonesia winning all four of them 5–2 & 1–0 against Hong Kong and 3–0 & 2–0 against Indonesia respectively.^[16][17] Following these matches India played at the Women's Gold Cup organised at home, where they won their first match against Iran by 1–0 but lost next two matches to Nepal and Myanmar by 1–2 and 0–2 respectively and failed to reach the final.^[18][19][20]

Team image[]

Nicknames[]

The India women's national football team has been known or nicknamed as "The Blue Tigresses".

Media coverage[]

There is unfortunately no television coverage for the team currently. While some of the games are streamed online on Facebook Live or YouTube.

Results and fixtures[]

The following is a list of match results in the last 12 months, as well as any future matches that have been scheduled.

Legend

  Win   Draw   Loss   Void or postponed   Fixture

‡ represents FIFA non "A" international, points will not be considered for FIFA ranking.

2021[]

2022[]

• Official India Fixtures and Results – The-AIFF.com
• India Fixtures and Results – Soccerway.com

Coaching staff[]

Current personnel[]

As of 20 January 2022^[21]

Position	Name
Head Coach	Thomas Dennerby
Assistant Coach	Priya Parathi Valappil
Goalkeeper Coach	Rajat Guha
Strength and Conditioning Coach	Jane Tornqvist

Manager history[]

As of 20 January 2022, after the match against  Iran.

Note: Only FIFA 'List A' matches are considered.

Name	Years	Played	Won	Tied	Lost	Win %
Sushil Bhattacharya	1975–	35	16	3	16	45.71
Harjinder Singh	2005[22] −10	9	2	0	7	22.22
Mohammad Shahid Jabbar	2010–13	21	19	1	1	90.48
	2013–14	4	2	1	1	40
	2014–15	8	6	0	2	75
Sajid Dar	2015–17	15	8	3	4	53.33
Maymol Rocky	2017–2021	35	18	4	13	51.43
Thomas Dennerby	2021–	8	3	1	4	42.86
Totals		135	74	13	48	54.81

Players[]

Current squad[]

The following 23 players were called up for the 2022 AFC Women's Asian Cup.^[23]

As of 10 January 2022, after the match against  Venezuela.

No.	Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club
1	1GK	Aditi Chauhan	(1992-11-20) 20 November 1992 (age 29)	28	0	Gokulam Kerala
23	1GK	Maibam Linthoingambi Devi	(1999-02-02) 2 February 1999 (age 22)	7	0	KRYPHSA
19	1GK	Sowmiya Narayansamy	(2000-07-25) 25 July 2000 (age 21)	1	0	Sethu
17	2DF	Dalima Chhibber	(1997-08-30) 30 August 1997 (age 24)	43	2	Gokulam Kerala
2	2DF	Nganbam Sweety Devi	(1999-12-01) 1 December 1999 (age 22)	22	2	KRYPHSA
21	2DF	Ritu Rani	(1997-05-25) 25 May 1997 (age 24)	5	0	Gokulam Kerala
4	2DF	Loitongbam Ashalata Devi (Captain)	(1993-07-03) 3 July 1993 (age 28)	55	4	Sethu
3	2DF	Manisha Panna	(1991-04-20) 20 April 1991 (age 30)	21	1	Gokulam Kerala
5	2DF		(2005-11-23) 23 November 2005 (age 16)	2	0	Young Welfare
8	3MF	Sanju	(1997-09-12) 12 September 1997 (age 24)	34	11	Railways
6	3MF	Yumnam Kamala Devi	(1992-03-04) 4 March 1992 (age 29)	36	33	Gokulam Kerala
9	3MF	Anju Tamang	(1995-12-22) 22 December 1995 (age 26)	19	5	KRYPHSA
20	3MF		(2000-01-01) 1 January 2000 (age 22)	1	0	Sethu
7	3MF	Nongmaithem Ratanbala Devi	(1999-12-02) 2 December 1999 (age 22)	25	11	KRYPHSA
14	3MF		(2003-04-09) 9 April 2003 (age 18)	0	0	Eastern Sporting Union
12	3MF	Indumathi Kathiresan	(1994-06-05) 5 June 1994 (age 27)	43	14	Tamil Nadu Police (women)
16	4FW	Manisha Kalyan	(2001-11-27) 27 November 2001 (age 20)	11	5	Gokulam Kerala
11	4FW	Dangmei Grace	(1996-02-05) 5 February 1996 (age 25)	47	16	Gokulam Kerala
10	4FW	Pyari Xaxa	(1997-05-18) 18 May 1997 (age 24)	20	7	Rising Student Club
15	4FW	Renu	(2001-01-16) 16 January 2001 (age 21)	7	1	Haryana
22	4FW		(2004-01-15) 15 January 2004 (age 18)	2	0	Jharkhand
13	4FW	Sandhiya Ranganathan	(1996-05-20) 20 May 1996 (age 25)	10	6	Sethu
18	4FW		(2003-01-01) 1 January 2003 (age 19)	2	0	Sethu

Recent call-ups[]

The following players were named to a squad in the last 12 months.

Pos.	Player	Date of birth (age)	Caps	Goals	Club	Latest call-up
GK		(1999-05-25) 25 May 1999 (age 22)	1	0	Gokulam Kerala	NT camp, 2021
DF	Wangkhem Linthoingambi Devi	(1995-03-01) 1 March 1995 (age 26)	3	0	KRYPHSA	NT camp, 2021
DF		(1992-12-23) 23 December 1992 (age 29)	2	0	Gokulam Kerala	NT camp, 2021
DF		(2005-02-05) 5 February 2005 (age 16)	1	0	Jharkhand	NT camp, 2021
DF	Sorokhaibam Ranjana Chanu	(1999-03-10) 10 March 1999 (age 22)	12	3	Gokulam Kerala	NT camp, 2021
DF		(2003-02-10) 10 February 2003 (age 18)	0	0	Young Welfare	NT camp, 2021
DF	Jabamani Tudu	(2000-04-10) 10 April 2000 (age 21)	10	1	Odisha	NT camp, 2021
MF	Soumya Guguloth	(2001-01-18) 18 January 2001 (age 21)	8	0	Gokulam Kerala	NT camp, 2021
MF		(2004-07-13) 13 July 2004 (age 17)	6	0	KRYPHSA	NT camp, 2021
MF	Sangita BasforeINJ	(1996-07-12) 12 July 1996 (age 25)	33	3	SSB Women	NT camp, 2021
MF	Heigrujam Daya Devi	(2000-04-04) 4 April 2000 (age 21)	6	0	Gokulam Kerala	NT camp, 2021
FW	Bala Devi	(1990-02-02) February 2, 1990 (age 31)	58	52	Rangers	NT camp, 2020
FW		(2001-08-04) 4 August 2001 (age 20)	1	0	Gokulam Kerala	NT camp, 2021
INJ Withdrew due to injury PRE Preliminary squad / standby RET Retired from the national team SUS Serving suspension WD Player withdrew from the squad due to non-injury issue.

Previous squads[]

Asian Games squads

• 2014 Asian Games Squad
• 1998 Asian Games Squad

South Asian Games

• 2016 South Asian Games squads

Captains[]

This section needs expansion. You can help by . (March 2021)

• Oinam Bembem Devi (20xx–2016)
• Loitongbam Ashalata Devi (20xx–present)

Records[]

As of 13 February 2021

Players in bold are still active, at least at club level.

Competitive record[]

FIFA Women's World Cup[]

FIFA Women's World Cup record
Host/Year	Result	Position	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD
1991	Did Not Enter
1995
1999	Did Not Qualify
2003
2007
2011	Did Not Enter
2015	Did Not Qualify
2019
2023	Withdrew From Qualification
Total	0/9	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

*Draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.

AFC Women's Asian Cup[]

*Draws include knockout matches decided on penalty kicks.

At 1979 AFC Asia Cup India placed two teams, India Senior(India S) and India Novice(India N), other version called as India North and India South.

Asian Games[]

• DNP: did not participate
• DNQ: did not qualified

Bold Positions show best finish in the tournaments.

SAFF Women's Championship[]

India has won the SAFF Women's Championship five times in a row.^[24]

SAFF Women's Championship record
Year	Result	Position	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD
2010	Winners		5	5	0	0	40	0	40
2012	Winners		5	5	0	0	33	1	32
2014	Winners		5	5	0	0	36	1	35
2016	Winners		4	3	1	0	11	3	8
2019	Winners		4	4	0	0	18	1	17
Total	5/5		23	22	1	0	138	6	132

South Asian Games[]

India has won the South Asian Games three times.

South Asian Games record
Year	Result	Position	Pld	W	D*	L	GF	GA	GD
2010	Winners		5	5	0	0	29	2	27
2016	Winners		5	3	2	0	14	1	13
2019	Winners		4	4	0	0	14	0	14
Total	3/3	3 Titles	14	12	2	0	57	3	54

Red border indicates, India had hosted the games.

Other tournaments[]

Turkish Women's Cup[]

Turkish Women's Cup record
Year	Result	GP	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD
2017	Did not enter
2018
2019	6th Place	4	1	1	2	10	4	+6
2020	Did not enter
2021	4th Place	3	0	0	3	2	13	-11
Total	2/5	7	1	1	5	12	17	-5

FIFA World Ranking[]

As of 18 April 2021^[25]

  Best Ranking    Best Mover    Worst Ranking    Worst Mover  

India's FIFA World Ranking History
	Rank	Year	Games Played	Won	Lost	Drawn	Best		Worst
							Rank	Move	Rank	Move
	57	2022	1	0	0	1	57	0	57	0
	57	2021	10	3	6	1	53	0	57	4

See also[]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website, the-AIFF.com (in English)
• Profile at FIFA.com (in English)
• India women's national football team picture, hindustantimes.com