BENGALURU: A horrible facial injury to Manpreet Singh in the fourth quarter — a mistimed close-range shot caught him flush near the eye when he was one of the covering defenders — marred the seventh-eighth World Cup play-off match between India and Belgium. As soon as the ball hit his face, he laid down and was writhing in pain even as players from both teams and the on-field referees immediately signalled for the doctors to hurry. Once he left the field of play, the mop up operation began as there was some blood on the blue canvas.
Minutes after that, India conceded the third of a wild game. Just when the hosts thought they had won the game, India sounded the board via Harmanpreet Singh at the death to send the game into a shoot-out which the hosts won to seal seventh spot.
There are two ways to look at India's performance. The easiest way to look at their performance is through their rankings. The eighth ranked team in the world finishing eighth at the World Cup? There's some kind of cold logic to that.
But peel back the layers and it immediately stops making sense. If the women's team has played with a lot of heart and gumption and a proper identity over the last two weeks, the men's team has been a mess. Their games have been marked by chaos, confusion, a porous defence and, most worryingly, at least from the outside, a lack of fitness. At one point in Friday's game against Belgium, India had the cardinal sin of having 11 outfield players and the captain was promptly sent to the bin for 10 minutes. A schoolboy error. Ever since Craig Fulton took the job over three years ago, the South African has always sought to control games against elite opposition. At the 2024 Olympics, for example, this was the way they won bronze. There was a set system in place, there was a place for flair as long as the system tolerated it. It was the Pep Guardiola school of coaching but it worked.
Over the last few years, though, the defence has looked a bit world weary. Over the last two Pro League campaigns in 2025 and 2026, they have conceded a remarkable 77 goals in 32 games. For a side whose primary focus is defensive structure, that's just way too many. And these same issues have blighted them at the World Cup. This team continued to give away too many opportunities from open play. Only a few years ago, they were one of the best out of possession sides in the world. At the World Cup, that has not been the case. They faced four higher-ranked teams in Belgium and the Netherlands. They drew one, lost thrice and out of the 240 minutes in those four games, led for about half an hour.
Siddharth Pandey, team director at Hyderabad Toofans in the HIL, asked "why have we been consistent in producing bad performances over the last year and a half against good quality international opposition? I think that's the line of questioning we should honestly adopt? The results are there for everyone to see. I think the deeper question should be what's triggering it?"
That's the question the leadership group and support staff will ask in the weeks to come.
India's results at the World Cup
vs Wales 3-1
vs England 2-4
vs Pakistan 5-3
vs Netherlands 1-3
vs Argentina 3-5
vs Belgium 3-3 (Belgium won via a shoot-out)