India mustered a grand total of two shots on goal in over 90 minutes of football, and opened their 2027 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers with a draw that really was an escape from a defeat. (Indian Football Team)
India’s last win of consequence was a 0-1 away victory against Kuwait in a World Cup qualifier in November 2023. Since then, an AFC Asian Cup has passed, numerous other WC qualifiers have gone by and those matches are sandwiched between friendlies played against different countries. The only result that has gone in their favour has been a 3-0 win against Maldives, a team that hasn’t seen a domestic league in two years. Since that Kuwait win, India have picked up seven losses, six draws and one win.
The sixth draw in that disastrous run of results came on Tuesday when India mustered a grand total of two shots on goal in over 90 minutes of football, and opened their 2027 AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers with a draw that really was an escape from a defeat. To gather a larger picture of the game, against a team ranked 185th in the world, Marquez was made to search for the right words, and the Spaniard had this to offer: “Maybe this is the reality of Indian football.”
When prodded to say something positive about the abject football that has become a way of life, he pricked that little broadcaster bubble rather satisfyingly: “The positive is that we didn’t concede a single goal with the chances they created.”
The entertainment factor of India’s international games isn’t the game itself, it might well be the visceral meltdown of its coach during and after the games. What better way to punish a Spaniard than to spend the first thirty minutes of the game kicking the ball further up the field – with no inkling of pressure or player nearby. Unfortunately for India, Bangladesh is also no slouch when it comes to returning the ball back promptly – a sobering moment for Sheffield Wednesday loanee Hamza Choudhury.
India have now drawn three of their last four games against Bangladesh. One draw or a loss can be brushed aside as happenstance but these results and their patterns point to just how far Indian football has receded even at the South Asian level.
Bangladesh may have looked the lesser of the teams on paper, but India’s weaker defensive line always felt like it was going to go under. (Indian Football Team)
The Indian game
What has emerged as a pattern for this Indian team has been giving the ball away in possession via long balls. When going through the midfield, the first option is to go through the flanks, from where the ball is immediately dropped into the box, from where the opposition defender easily picks it off. Rinse, lather and repeat.
Marquez tried to play a high line, but melding three lines of Indian players close together should have led to shorter passing options. Instead it led to opening up the defence, where captain Sandesh Jhingan and Rahul Bheke, two players who get caught out on pace, were regularly left to fend for themselves. Bangladesh tried to put themselves in one-on-one situations on the flanks with both and found great success, beating the ageing Indian centre-back pairing for pace.
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The second half saw an attempt from both teams to hold onto the ball. The home team were even a shade better but in a system where offensive output is negligent, chances needed to be taken. Chhetri got a couple of them, but as has been the case with the veteran Indian striker, goals usually only come when a large number of chances arrive as well. He had two half-opportunities but the real marker of his game was the relentless closing down of Bangladesh’s defensive line and his defensive duty on Choudhury. Barring that, India really did not create anything of note.
Bangladesh may have looked the lesser of the teams on paper, but India’s weaker defensive line always felt like it was going to go under, a sentiment echoed by their coach Javier Cabrera.
“It’s a good result getting a point on the road against a Pot 1 team. But the feeling at the end of the first half was we could have been one or two goals up. But we’re happy with the point,” said Cabrera, who has the lowest-ranked team in a group consisting of India, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Marquez’s team on the other hand, the on paper giants in this quartet, will next face Hong Kong on the road on June 10. Hong Kong and Singapore also picked up a point each in a 0-0 draw to keep Group C well open.
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The only advantage that the team can carry to Hong Kong will be that the football calendar in the country will have come to a close by then and Marquez will finally get a long camp with the players, should the AIFF and its commercial partners deem it fit. It’s unclear whether Chettri would continue to play for India then as well or this return was for two matches alone.
In the past few years, India has had a habit of struggling against ASEAN countries. Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam have caused all sorts of problems to this team and just like a result against Bangladesh wasn’t a given even before the game, India’s other fixtures come with the same risk of poor results. After qualifying for the AFC Asian Cup twice in a row, this campaign could well be a return to the old ways.
