Kerala football news

India u 19 gets a thrilling finish in the Asian qualifiers : A first hand report

India played down Kuwait by 3-0  in the last match of the Asia cup qualifiers. After a shaky and disappointment start in the tournament, the boys came back into the game and outperformed Kuwait in all areas of the game. 

Through out the tournament team showed great character. A bad start against Iraq (5-0 India lost), an unfortunate defeat against Saudi Arabia(3-1), loosing the match between the cup & lips against Oman (4-3) were good enough to break any team in the world. It would be extremely difficult to get recovered. Also team played 5 matches in 10 days. This is something which is very difficult at the top level football. 

Defeating all these pressures, team played like a well oiled machine against Afghanistan and won the match with a convincing margin of 4-1 after trailing by one goal in the first half. 

Remember Afghanistan lost to Iraq by 2-0 only and was a group of warriors. The game played Afghanistan was simply superb. Then comes the final match of the league against a very good team like Kuwait. The boys had to play beyond their maximum capacity to even hold a team like Kuwait. 

The team got a good start and scored their first goal in the 6th minute.  It came from a throw to Fela (no.20) who controlled it at the top left corner of the penalty area and passed it to the captain Jeje (no.10) into the penalty area.  Jeje took 2 defenders on his way to goal and finished the ball onto the far post without any mistake.  Kuwait became a wounded tiger.  Started fighting back with all their weapons.   
Our boys kept going and Kuwait turned into a rough game.  This gave us a freekick at the injury time of the first half infront of their penalty box, 25 yards away from their goal.  Milan Singh (no.7)  took a carpet drive through the legs of their wall and goalkeeper rebounded the ball.  Fela was the first one to reach for that rebound and found the back of the net in no time.  
Referees were never in a mindset of doing the things fairly for us in this tournament and you can not expect it also. All the teams except Afghanistan are much beyond India’s ranking. The referees were giving maximum possible help to the Arab countries like Saudi, Kuwait and Oman. India needs to win their respect with constant  & steady performance.

In the second half, Kuwait wanted to win the game at any cost and started doing big fouls. They were not able to digest the Indian performance. During the free kicks and corner kicks they were sending upto 7 players into Indian box. The game turned into more and more rough play. Kuwaitis started manhandling our boys and referee was not courageous to show red card. Kuwait officials entered into the ground to pacify their players. One of the players started abusing their manager. They were panicking and getting mad. 

It was the strong character shown by our boys that kept them going in all these adverse situations. The game say 8 yellow cards – 5 for kuwait and 3 for india.  Two cards shown against india were for handling the ball, which are 2 disputed decisions.  They were not hand ball but ball hand. 
In the 56th minute came India’s third and sealing goal. Thirthankar (no19) touched the ball back from a throw to Jeje who took the ball into their box. It was a 2 v 2 situation with Fela to help him. He dribbled one defender and as the other defender came towards him, he gave a really unselfish pass to his fellow striker Fela infront of the goal to get a simple finish.
 
With this goal, Fela became the top scorer of the tournament with 4 goals.  India conceded 13 goals from 5 matches and scored 11 goals. 

The performance of Indian boys were really outstanding. The character and discipline they showed in the tournament was appreciated by all team officials and organizers. It was the death group of Asian qualifiers with Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Oman in the same pool. India fought well and finished 4th in the pool ahead of Oman and Afghanistan with 6 points. 

If india had gone for a couple of exposure trips before this tournament, there was a very good chance of qualifying. That is what this tournament taught us. As the tournament was advancing the team was playing more and more better.  Nothing other than the preparation helps performing. This is a memorable tournament for India. 

Report:
Narayana Menon VA,
Asst. Coach India U 19 team.
Photo Source : the-AIFF.com