India coach concerned by how to fill Bhutia void

India coach Savio Madeira has admitted the lack of an experienced figurehead like Bhaichung Bhutia could cost his squad heading into the AFC Challenge Cup in Nepal from March 8-19. Bhutia, 35, retired from international football in January, followed by Mahesh Gawali and Climax Lawrence, leaving a squad of young and relatively inexperienced players to defend their AFC Challenge Cup title. The 2008 winners of the Challenge Cup and champions of the past two Neh-ru and SAFF titles trained in Dubai from February 15 to March 3 and now face former finalists Tajikistan, Philippines and North Korea in a tough group. Madeira told Gulf News: "Bhutia was something of a legend in India and both on and off the field he was a good leader. That is what we are lacking. Sunil [Chhetri] is trying to match up to what he was but it will take time. For sure the country will be missing Bhutia until we find a new one. Since the 2011 Asia Cup we are missing a lot of players and it will take time to build up to that level with the juniors we have. But I'm confident that with the work we are doing in the long run it can be better. "There are a lot of youngsters in the squad and a few seniors have yet to come back, so for the juniors to gel with the seniors it will take time. This will be a tricky tournament for us. The target is to qualify from our group first and from there we can look forward. "We are in a group where teams are better than us. We're pretty confident after winning the SAFF Championship and we'll at least give it a good fight in Nepal. Two teams qualify from the group and from there we'll look to see what we can do. "We had quite a few injuries entering camp and leave with even more. That's quite a worry for me. Some will recover but there's a big decision over who to take. If we can get a full squad minus one or two it will be pretty good." Under former coach Bob Houghton, who resigned last April, India qualified for the 2011 Asia Cup automatically thanks to their 2008 AFC Challenge Cup triumph.