Chennai: The Indian football team will play two matches on home and away basis in the Asia Cup and the Pre Olympic qualifying tournament in March and April respectively.

The secretary of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), Albert Colaco, in a press release, said that 26 players had been selected for the Asia Cup and 28 for the Pre Olympic tournament, for a camp in Fatorda (Goa) from March 9.

India would play DPR Korea (North Korea) in the Asia Cup on March 24 and 30, while the Pre-Olympic match against Turkmenistan would be on April 5 and 19, he said.

The AIFF has also postponed 12 of the matches in the ongoing Oil PSU National Football league, as they clash with these two international assignments.

Following are the probables for the Asia Cup: Goal: Naseem Ahktar, Virender Singh, Sandip Nandip.

Defence: Peter Siddique, Debit Ghosh, Deepak Mondal, M Suresh, Arun Malhotra, Mahesh Gowali, Selwyn Fernandes.

Midfield: Alvito D'Cunha, S Venkatesh, Subash Chakravorty and K Kulothungan, Climax Lawrence, Tomba Singh, Alex Ambrose, Jules Alberto, Riston Rodrigues Vasco, Jo Paul Ancheri, P Rennedy Singh, Palash Karmarkar and Sameer Naik.

Forwards: Abhishek Yadav, I M Vijayan and Baichung Bhutia.

Campers for Pre Olympics: Goal: Naseem Ahktar, V P Satish Kumar, Sangram Mukharjee.

Defence: Arun Malhotra, Mahesh Gowali, Pio Rodrigues, Mani Tomba Singh, Selwyn Fernandes, Harpreet Singh, Satish Bharathi.

Midfield: Dipankar Roy, Raju Singh, S Malaswmtluanga, Subhash Chakravorty, Roque Barreto, Tatin Bist Singh, Sukhwinder Singh, S K Sanjeeb, Mehtab Hossain, V K Harish, Venu Jose.

Forwards: Abhishek Yadav, Praveen Kumar, Alex Ambrose, Nitin Pradan, Harvinder Singh, Ashim Biswas and Ishfaq Ahamad.

PTI