Chopra for India?

While he qualifies according to FIFA rules through his Grandfather, the Indian FA rules would need to relax their stipulation that only Indian citizens can represent their country.

“Hopefully there’s a way way round it, as I would like to play for them. One of the options is to change my European passport to an Indian one. It would mean that I’ll need to get a visa to be in Europe, but I think there are ways round it.”

The Indian National team is ranked 144th in the World. They qualified for the Asian Cup by beating Syria, who are ranked only one place behind Wales, in the Nehru Cup Final. Their preferred tactic currently is apparently to use wingers to cross the ball for 5ft 7″ Coventry City triallist Sunil_Chettri, who plays for Kansas City wizards. It doesn’t sound ideal, but he did score a hat trick against Vietnam recently with two of his goals coming from wide balls. It seems that the Indian secret weapon has been found out though, as they were hammered 1-9  by Kuwait a couple of days ago.

Chopra hasn’t been in scintillating form this season. The arrival of Bellamy has seen him less essential, if not pushed towards the fringe of first eleven. He is currently undroppable due to his ability to score goals, but if City were to suffer a drop in form , then it wouldn’t take much imagination to see a 4-5-1 lineup with Burke and Bellamy on the flanks, and a beefier midfield three supporting Bothroyd.

If Chopra does manage to sort things out, and is selected for the Asian Cup, then he will miss several Cardiff City matches in January. India are in a group with Bahrain, Australia and South Korea.