SAFF 2009: Maldives ease past India
Defending champions Maldives registered a comfortable 2-0 victory over India U-23 in their last group league encounter played at the Bangbandhu National Stadium Dhaka today. The win helped Maldives to place themselves at the top of the table with seven points in Group A while, India U-23 finished second in the group with six points.
Sukhwinder Singh’s boys will now take on Bangladesh in the second semi-final on Friday, while Maldives will take on Sri Lanka in the first semi-final on the same day.
Needing a point to make it to the semi-finals Maldives collected three points from the match and were certainly the better side today. Maldives drew first blood when Ahmed Thoriq found the back of the net in the 15th minute after Indian defence was found napping. Ali Ashfaaq picked the ball from top of the 18 yard box and dodged past both the centre back before providing a low cross to Thoriq to do the rest.
Indian defence was at times found in sixes and sevens as they failed to curtail the striking duo of Ali Ashfaaq and Ahmed Thoriq which is surely a concern for the Sukhvinder Singh.
Maldives went for the break with a 1-0 precarious lead and scored the second goal through Fazel Ibrahim in the 83rd minute to wrap up the match in their favour. Though India gave a better account of themselves in the second half but failed to level the terms.
The best chance for the India U-23 fell in for Balwant Singh in the 48th minute whose right footer was wide of the woodwork.
India U-23 were down to ten men when Balwant Singh was given the marching order after picking up his second yellow card of the day. Balwant Singh will miss the semi-final on Friday against Bangladesh.
Source: AIFF
December 9th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
India was lucky not to concede more goals. The match against Bangladesh will be tight especially since they are playing at home.