BENGALURU: At the end of the day, it was a two-goal defeat. But a match, where the script called for a merciless mauling of the rank underdogs by a vastly superior team ranked 77 places above them, instead saw a spirited and dogged fight by the team in blue. India may have lost 0-2 to Australia in the opening match of the 2024 Asian Cup at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium in Al Rayyan on Saturday, but Igor Stimac’s men left the pitch with their heads held high.
That, for fifty minutes they were on level terms with a team that beat Denmark and gave defending champions Argentina a run for their money in the 2022 World Cup, shows how far Indian football has come in the last decade. When this same fixture kicked off India’s 2011 Asian Cup campaign, they had conceded three goals by halftime and only limited the damage because Australia took their foot off the pedal after a fourth.
However, on Saturday, the stats looked a lot different after the first 45 minutes. Sure, Australia dominated throughout but India’s defenders put everything on the line and limited them to just two shots on target in the first half. And it could have looked a lot better for India — in the 16th minute, Sunil Chhetri put a free header off target despite having only the Aussie keeper Matt Ryan to beat. The spell was broken in the second half when a mistake by keeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu saw Jackson Irvine score Australia’s opener.
Then Jordan Bos scored a second in the 73rd minute and closed off the game.However, Stimac will have a bunch of positives to take from this game. Good coaches, it is often said, succeed in moulding a team in their image and Stimac seems to have done just that, with India’s defenders showing that same discipline and the willingness to put everything on the line to defend their goal, that was the Croatian’s hallmark as a player. Sandesh Jhingan in particular was heroic on Saturday — the highlight being a diving header to clear a corner that left him with a bandage around his head. One wonders how much more resolute this defence would have been, had his usual defensive partner Anwar Ali been available.
While this game showcases the progress that has been made, it also lays bare the progress that needs to be made if India is to challenge on the Asian level. India’s attack was non-existent and they had little of the ball. The Australians had 71 percent of the ball while India made only 289 passes. Stats like these reveal a huge gulf in quality that needs to be bridged.
Saturday’s match was a historic one for Asian football as Japanese referee Yamashita Yoshimi became the first woman ever to take charge of an Asian Cup match. It might also go down in Indian football history as a marker that future performances will be measured against, to figure out how much progress has been made. But for now, Uzbekistan await in the next match on Thursday.