Xtra Time Web Desk: Indian coach Igor Stimac expressed disappointment after failing to defeat Afghanistan. On Friday, in the second round match of the Asian Qualifiers for the World Cup at Saudi Arabia’s home ground, India drew 0-0 with Afghanistan. Despite creating multiple opportunities, the Indian footballers couldn’t capitalize on them. Croatian coach Stimac felt that they should have won the match.
After the match, he told reporters, “The match was certainly interesting. However, I’m disappointed with the result. We created three to four good opportunities but couldn’t score. That’s our problem, which we’ve been facing for the past few years.”
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Despite their efforts to play football against Afghanistan, who are ranked 117th in the FIFA rankings compared to India’s 157th, the Indian team couldn’t find the back of the net. Even though they created several good opportunities towards the end of the match, India failed to capitalize on them. The golden opportunity to score from a header in a corner kick was also missed by India’s only Bengali player, Subhashis Bose.
India, with four points from three matches in Group A of the Asian Qualifiers, now stands second. Qatar leads with nine points from three matches. On the other hand, Qatar suffered a 3-0 defeat against Kuwait in another match today. Next Tuesday, India will play a home match against Afghanistan in Guwahati. Winning that match and securing second place poses a big challenge for Igor Stimac’s team.
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Stimac said, “We were close to victory with the opportunities we had. We’ve played all our attacking players. But none of them could be effective. We still need to improve on a few things. We made some easy things difficult in attack. I’m not happy about that.”
However, the Indian coach is pleased with the performance of the team’s defenders. He said, “Our defenders played very well. They didn’t give the opposition an inch of space. But we need to improve in passing, creating opportunities, and attacking from both flanks.”