India went down 0 - 1 in the opener of the Nehru Cup as Ali Al Saad's fifth-minute screamer gave the Lebanese a well fought victory over the Men in Blue.
Lost in the raptures of the Delhi crowd, I witnessed what can only be described as the worst football game in living history. At least if you are a supporter of India, or even the beautiful game itself.
The style of football that India has been displaying over the last two years - the quick 1 - 2s, the marauding wide men, the killer instinct of the pair up front - the one that won India both the Nehru Cup and the AFC Challenge Cup, were, well missing.
Not that one can blame any team for this, the pitch, or as I fondly call it a grassy-patch-in-the-forbidden-forest, made life very difficult for a team that has recently relied on short passes and well formed triangles to move their plays forward.
In light of this, Bob Houghton had given his boys clear instructions - back to the basics - Give the ball to the wide men and let them bang it in to the forwards who will hopefully make something out of it. Route 1, Direct Pass, the Long Ball... Whatever we want to call it. But the fact remained, our strikers looked like 2 Hobbits surrounded by an army orcs thwarting away anything that came their way.
If there was any positive to take home, it was Sunil Chettri getting 45 minutes of game time under his belt. Otherwise it was a day to forget for the Indians.
Apart from picking the ball up from the net, Subrata Pal had little to do in the whole game. Our defensive substitutes Mehrajuddin Wadoo and Mahesh Gawli looked better suited to be included in the starting line-ups for the rest of the tournament as both NS Manju and Anwar failed to impress. Manju has injury worries as well and is said to possibly be out for the rest of the tournament. SuruKumar put in another decent performance but was caught out a couple of times, most notably in the second half, when the linesman wrongly called a Lebanese player offside to deny them the second goal of the game.
Climax Lawrence came out thinking victory would be a walk in the park and seemed to be practising this theory quite literally. He had a grand total of 8 touches on the ball in the second half and covered as many percent of the pitch during his late evening stroll. N. Pradeep looked close to a heart stroke by the 75th minute, although he did produce a moment of brilliance in the first half - a diving through ball to Steven Dias who came charging in to the box, only to see the defender got there first. Out on the wings, Steven Dias's (or Das as the crowed called him) love affair with the Lebanese defensive line continued as he showed some amazing link-up play with their centre backs (Long Ball In, Header Out - Looked like a P.T. drill) while the very promising Albert Perreira had quite the subdued debut. A very disappointing return from the Indian midfield.
And if there was any more evidence needed that Baichung Bhutia has lost a few, quite a few, yards of pace, then yesterday's game was the bearer of bad news. India will be better suited to get the veteran on as a second-half substitute when he will have more of an impact on the game, and give promising youngster Sushil Kumar more time on the pitch. The only shot India had on target was his first-half chance where he turned and swiped at the ball which went tearing toward the net only for the Lebanese keeper to deny him. Sunil Chettri was industrial and showed light feet but couldn't do much with the lack of service.
A note on the Lebanese No. 8, who was running harder than the entire Indian midfield and was quite a handful for the 'Bhangra Boys'.
If the condition of the pitch remains the same, expect a lot more 1-nils' and fewer 'ranked' teams to turn up for the tournament in its following editions.
All of India's remaining games are must wins now, as Lebanon will be favourites along with Syria to reach the final. But we all hope the stadium will be painted blue come 31st August.
Until then, Bring in the beers.
Teams:
India: Subrata Paul, Gourmangi Singh, Anwar (Mehrajuddin Wadoo, 58), Surkumar Singh, N.S. Manju (Mahesh Gawli, 51) Climax Lawrence, Steven Dias, Anthony Pereira, N.P. Pradeep; Bhaichung Bhutia, Sushil Singh (Sunil Chettri, 46)
Lebanon: Lary Mehana, Ali Al Saad, Ali Hamam, Bilal Najjarine, Ali Yakoub, Ali El Etat, Hassan Maatouk (Sussien Dadik, 46), Mohammad Korhani, Mohammad Gaddar (Amer Khan, 46), Mohmoud El Ali
Goals: Ali Al Saad (5 minutes)
2 comments:
gyani. good stuff. although i wish we would all stop helping bloody bob the traveller, by making comments about the lenght of the grass. it was as long for lebanon, and they managed to pass the ball around pretty well when they had it.
bhutia has lost his balls, and someone needs to tell him to stop whining like a girl. hes supposed to be the bloody captain.
very good read though. loved the bit about das and his pt drill.
manju has a fracture by the way. out for 6 weeks
thanks dude... have to give India something man :p... and even though Lebanon played the possesion game very well, they barely threatened and I guess that was down to the grass...
keep reading once a week :)
Post a Comment