MUMBAI:
Indian football team head coach Igor Stimac believes his team can still advance to the third round of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, despite an embarrassing defeat to lower-ranked Afghanistan here on Tuesday. Afghanistan, ranked 158th in the world, stunned 117th-ranked India 2-1, handing the home team one of its most humiliating defeats in recent years despite talisman Sunil Chhetri’s 94th international goal in his 150th match.
“Of course, I think we can qualify (for the third round of World Cup Qualifiers) and I told you before as well we are going to be a different team after a long camp. You can see that half of our players are not able to bring that intensity and I cannot change that in five days, I am sorry,” Stimac said after the match.
“I repeat myself again and again and again. I hope you remember all these players were the same players in June-July and Afghanistan is not a different team than Kuwait and Lebanon teams that we had beaten and dominated.” In his landmark game, Chhetri did what was expected of him, scoring from the penalty spot in the 37th minute after Haroon Amiri handled the ball inside the box in India’s home leg of the second round of the joint qualifiers for the World Cup and the 2027 AFC Asian Cup.
However, the Afghans responded in the second half with goals from Rahmat Akbari (71′) and Sharif Mukhammad (88′), leaving the packed house at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium devastated by yet another defeat.
STIMAC APOLOGISES
Stimac apologised for the defeat, citing his team’s subpar performance.
“The difference is only in the intensity,” he explained. He stated that if he had had more time to prepare, the outcome would have been different. Stimac disagreed with the claim that his team was tactically outplayed on Tuesday, but he did say that India should not have conceded the penalty due to a stupid mistake. He stated that the Afghan attack was one-dimensional, with long balls into the penalty area, and that the Indian defence was ”ineffective in checking this predictable approach.
“We did many things correct today but something that was very poor was that after being in control for most of the game, there were some points in the game when we give something away. As a team, we are frozen for 5-6 minutes, which is inexplicable. “It’s not only about trying to qualify for the third round, it’s also about what we are going to do there, when we get there. We have to do well in June otherwise we will stay where we were in the last eight years, qualifying against Myanmar and Guam.”
