
CHENNAI: India’s mainstay in defence, Gouramangi Singh believes th at if his team can mai ntain the tempo of the initial 20 minutes during the home leg of the WC qualifier as they did in the away tie, they have a ch ance of pulling off an upset. Although India will miss goalkeeper Subrata Paul and de fender De babrata Roy in the return leg, Gouramangi fe els that the side is not rattled by the margin of victory th at needs to be achieved to go th rough to the next roun d.
“We were unfortunate to lo se two key players within twenty five minutes. We st ar ted the game right but th ose two penalties ki lled the game for us. There’s no point talking about the refereeing as we can’t change the result. But if we play the way we did in the initial stages in Abu Dhabi, we can get a good result,” Gou ramangi told TNIE from New Delhi.
His teammate Syed Rahim Nabi has said that the Indian players are prone to making rash tackles as they get away with them in the I-League but are likely to be punished at the international level, which happened in the fi rst leg.
But Gouram angi does not want to judge referees.
“I th ink we sho uld not compare our re ferees with internatio n al referees as anyo ne can ha ve a bad day and as human be ings we are pr one to ma ke mista kes.
But there is always scope for im proveme nt and we should le arn from our mi st akes,” he said. Praising de b utant Ka ranjit Singh, who was called in after Subrata’s di smissal, Go uramangi said the yo ung ke eper grabbed the op portuni ty well and will do a good job. “Karanjit step ped up to the plate in a difficult ti me, as the te am was playing with nine men and do wn by two goals. He grabbed the opportunity with both ha nds and hopefu lly he’ll repeat it on T h ursday,” Gouramangi said.