Indian Football has been on a rapid rise past few years and the Sunil Chhetri-led side, after an incredible 2023, will be walking into the 2024 calendar year on the banks of immense support and improvement this team has seen recently.
Below the schedule for Indian Football team, both Men and Women, in 2024:
India takes on Australia on January 13, in the AFC Asian Cup. The Blue Tigers are grouped alogside Australia, Uzbekistan, and Syria in Group B. India will then face Uzbekistan on January 18 and Syria on January 23. Alongside AFC Asian Cup, Kalinga Cup will be in the running too, from January 9 till January 28.
The Indian Women's Football team will too have a plenty of action this year as the ongoing Indian Women’s League is set to end its league phase somewhere in March, as 3 fixtures haven't been alloted an official date, with the Final scheduled in April. The U19 Women’s Team will be in action, starting February 2, in the SAFF U19 Women’s tournament, with the final scheduled on February 8. The SAFF Women's tournament haven't had their fixtures finalised yet and therefore, with the efforts of AIFF, the Blue Tigresses will be playing key friendlies during the time period, which are yet to be announced.
The Santosh Trophy will take place in the state of Arunachal Pradesh. The esteemed tournament will be heading into its 77th edition, starting February 21, till March 9. During all this action, the epitome league of football in India, Indian Super League (ISL) will be heading in for a pause so that fatigue and clash of dates might not hit the Indian players, but will resume in the month of February, for which the dates and fixtures aren't announced yet.
Alongside the ISL, the prestigious I-League will also conclude in the month of April. Like since the rule change, the winners of the first division league of India will be earning a promotion to ISL 2024-25. However, seeing the magnitude of ISL grow ever since its inception on October 21, 2013, the upcoming ISL season will introduce relegation system as well, to make the competition bit more fighting.
Keeping in mind the biggest mission of the Indian football, the Blue Tigers will resume their conquest for the FIFA World Cup 2026 in the month of March. The AFC Asian Cup 2027 Joint Qualifiers will too, fall in the same month. India willl be facing Afghanistan in two respective home and away matches on March 21 and March 26. The journey for FIFA World Cup 2026 will resume in June with the qualifiers against Kuwait on June 6 and mighty Qatar on June 11.
The new season of Indian Football will resume with the Durand Cup and ISL from the month of July as Indian Football is looking ahead for a defining 2024 footballing year.