South Korea outplayed India to register a convincing win in their final league encounter in the AFC Asia Cup 2011. The scoreline turned out to be a respectable one for India especially when most of the pundits were expecting a record scoreline which was not to be. On any other day the scoreline might have been different.
A wonderful performance from Sunil Chhetri(Today's MVP for India)
The Indian defence was as usual looking nervous and was leaving too many spaces for the fast and fit Koreans. Renedy Singh, who was one of the top performers for the Indian team against Bahrain didn't had much role to play against the top Asian side because of an injury which came in as early as 5th minute of the game. He was clearly frustrated with his disappointing end of Asia Cup Campaign. Deepak Mondal came in as his replacement to cover the left back position and Rahim Nabi took the left midfield position. As expected the first goal for South Korea came as early as 6th minute and the second goal came in at 9th minute. The first goal however was not a genuine goal as the referee failed to spot a hand ball inside the Indian box by a Korean player. Much to the delight of Indian supporters, ace striker Sunil Chhetri unexpectedly pulled one back when he was brought down inside the Korean box and he coolly converted the spot kick to make it 2-1. The rain had its part to play in most part of the game with players loosing their control time and again. Subrata Paul was finding it hard to grip the ball and he was definitely not having the best time under the bars when South Korea made it 3-1 on 23rd minute. The scoreline however remained the same till the first half whistle thanks to some poor finishing and some goal line saves from Indian defenders and Subrata Paul.
If it anybody was thinking that the floodgates would open after the first half then it was definitely not going to be. Indian team parked the bus in front of goal to deny the Korean's score more. Sunil Chhetri was playing with some intent which was clearly on display when he along with Steven Dias launched a quick counter attack when the later won the ball inside the Indian half and he ran some 30 yards to pass it to Chhetri and Chhteri's pass somehow went a bit far for Dias. Chhetri nearly scored his second when Steven Dias struck a perfect curling corner which Sunil expertly headed towards the Korean goal but the Korean goalkeeper did extremely well to deny the effort. Indian legend Baichung Bhutia came in as a sub in the 80th minute to lift the team up and his presence created a spark in the Indian players. The scoreline ended 4-1 in Korean's favor with Korea scoring only one goal in the second half.
India will take this performance in the Asia Cup as a stepping stone for its future initiatives and will look forward to completely revamp its entire domestic structure with the helping hand of IMG-Reliance.
0 comments:
Post a Comment