India Under 19 went down fighting 1-3 to Saudi Arabia in their AFC U 19 Championship 2010 qualification Round Group C match played at Arbil,Iraq under flood lights on Saturday night. India led 1-0 at the lemon break.
India who had earlier lost to Iraq in the first match on the opening day made three changes in the starting line up with Fela ,Tiranthkar Sarkar and Vishal Kumar coming in place for Manandeep ,Akshay Mall and Abhishek Das.
India started on a positive note and made few good moves through Lalrindika but could not convert the chances.
India had early scare in the 20th minute when custodian was adjudged handling the ball outside the box but the resultant free kick was however palmed off over the bar by Indian keeper.
With a large contingent of local Kurdish fans behind India,Shilton D’Silva put India ahead in the 28th minute.Deepak Devrani passed the ball from a free kick to Rozama on the left flank.R Rozama moved up and sent a curling cross which was neatly headed in by Shilton to give India 1-0 lead.
Saudi Arabia equalized in the 55th minutes in the second half when a clearance from Deepak Devrani was misjudged by the Indian custodian and the ball just found the back of the net resulting in a self goal.
Indians were reduced to ten men when Vishal Kumar earned his second yellow card of the match in 66th minute and was sent off by Referee Vo Minh Tri of Vietnam.
Down to ten men Indians were forced to go defensive and brought in Abhishek Das ,Akshay Mall and Mama.
Saudi combination of Yahya Hussain ,Abdullas Ibrahim ,Mohammed Yahya and Yasir Hussain were combining well and gave a difficult time to Indians.The intensity of their moves can be judged as they earned thirteen corners while India had only five corners.
India which could have won or drawn the match ,conceded the second goal in the 90th minute barely a few second away from the final whistle through Abdulla Ali and then the final goal in the fourth minute of the injury time through substitute Muhannad Hamed.
Source: The AIFF
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Sunday 8 November 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.