Indian football hits new low with shock loss to Afghanistan
Indian football hit a new low with a gut-wrenching 1-2 defeat to lower-ranked Afghanistan in the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers here on Tuesday, the result reflecting the mess the sport currently finds itself in the country.
Entering the home leg match of the qualifiers as the fancied team, the 117-ranked India took the lead in the 37th minute, when talisman Sunil Chhetri struck his 94th international goal in his landmark 150th match.
However, the Afghans hit back in the second half with goals from Rahmat Akbari (71′) and Sharif Mukhammad (88′), leaving the packed house at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium heartbroken after yet another failure.
Indian football has fared worse in the past. Who can forget the embarrassing defeat, by a similar margin, to tiny pacific nation Guam in 2015, when they faced off in a 2018 World Cup Qualifier.
That reverse came against a country with a population of merely two lakh people, forcing the game’s stakeholders in India to review the loss.
Those running the game refuse to learn from the mistakes made in the past and if Tuesday’s match against the 158-ranked team is any indication, they have not taken the corrective measures required to lift the sport from the abyss it slipped into following prolonged period of inconsistency and indifferent results when it mattered the most.
Often, it appears as if only Chhetri is turning up for a game and his teammates relying completely on his goal-scoring prowess to see the team through.
