CHENNAI: In the end, it proved to be one hurdle too much for India’s U-16 football team. On Monday, they were a win away from becoming the first Indian football team to qualify for a World Cup of any sort.
The scoreboard, at the final whistle of their U-16 Asian Championship quarterfinal against South Korea, revealed that they had lost by a solitary second-half goal — a laudable result against a side of the much superior pedigree.
Their achievement in reaching the quarterfinal may not be unprecedented — an Indian team did the same in 2002 — but this team has certainly done better than any of their predecessors.
In 2002, India qualified for the quarters by virtue of being the third-best team in their group — the fourth team was Myanmar. But here, few can dispute that they deserved to be among the top eight. The goal that they conceded on Monday was their first of the tournament, coming after 337 minutes.
They held Iran — a team that thrashed them by three goals in the previous edition of this tournament — to a goalless draw. They had the same number of points as group toppers Indonesia and only fell behind on goal difference.
The match was immediately followed by an outpouring of elation on social media — the likes of India skipper Sunil Chhetri and goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu all congratulated the boys. For former India captain IM Vijayan, the biggest takeaway was that an Indian — Bibiano Fernandes — was in charge of the team.
“No one ever thought an Indian team would come this close to qualifying for a World Cup this soon,” he said.
“The performances of the players, especially the goalkeeper and the defence was really good and looked really well organised. And it is great that it was an Indian coach who set them up this well. What Bibiano has done augurs well for the future of Indian coaching.”
But the match against South Korea was also proof that any optimism has to be intertwined with a degree of caution. The Koreans dominated the game and India had ten men behind the ball for most of the match, only some outstanding goalkeeping from Niraj Kumar keeping the margin of defeat from being wider.
Apart from a first-time volley from Ridge De’Mello early in the second half that was only prevented from rattling the net by the South Korean keeper’s fingertips, India’s best chance of progressing always looked to be a 0-0 draw.
And as excellent as their defence was, it also has to be noted that they failed to score a goal from open play — their solitary strike, against Vietnam, was a penalty.
This is proof that there are still miles to go before India can truly claim to belong in that elite bracket. This effort though is a step in the right direction.
vishnu.prasad@newindianexpress.com