Crispin Chettri, India’s women’s team football coach, believes the team will be a successful one in the upcoming AFC Women’s Asian Cup in Australia and has strong chances to make it through the tournament knockouts as part of Group C alongside Japan, Vietnam, and Chinese Taipei. The Women’s Asia Cup 2026 is scheduled to begin from March 1 to 21. Chettri also has high hopes for the Blue Tigresses entry in the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
But ahead of the Asia Cup, the Blue Tigresses and Chettri will travel to Turkey on January 15 for friendlies match scheduled against three European clubs, which will be played from January 18 to 23 followed by that they will face three national teams for the 2026 Turkish Women’s Cup. Followed by that, they will next move to Australia on February 10, where they will face some national teams and local counterparts.
Confirming the Blue Tigresses schedule, AIFF Deputy Secretary General M. Satyanarayan revealed the plans that the team is expected to follow. He said, “The team will spend a month in Turkey and play competitive matches before travelling to Australia.”
Chettri on Blue Tigresses recent performance
In a recent interview, Chettri talked about Blue Tigresses performance in the last season, including the Indian Women’s League, the SAFF Women’s Club Championship, and the AFC Champions League.
Chettri said, “East Bengal had a very good number of matches. Let’s not talk about the IWL and SAFF Club Championship, but the number of teams and the quality they played in the AFC Champions League was great. It faced China’s Wuhan Jiangda FC, a quality side.”
“That will help me a lot. We also had a decent number of games in October and November. November was a little bit better because we got time to prepare ourselves. Because in October, we came back after three months. So we were rusty.
Similarly, in IWL, the first few matches were rusty. Then the league also started to flow. The momentum was there, and everyone started to perform. Although the recovery time was very short, I was worried about injuries. Thankfully, apart from Soumya [Guguloth] having a niggle, no injuries,” he added.
On Saturday, December 20, 2025, East Bengal FC won the first-ever edition of the SAFF Women’s Club Championship after defeating APF FC by 3-0 in the finals held at the Dasrath Stadium in Kathmandu, Nepal.
(Quotes sourced from Sportstar)
