India 1-0 Afghanistan

India U-23 took on Afghanistan in the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Championship at the BangaBandhu National Stadium, Dhaka, Bangladesh.

India have won the tournament 4 times already and are favourites this time round as well, but are fielding their U-23 squad this year.

India hadn’t created as many chances as Afghanistan in their opening game of this year’s tournament. Both teams ended on 0-0 at half time and were struggling to keep the ball.

Afghanistan put together better chances as compared to India, in the second half. The Afghani’s looked strong contenders to upset India.

Skipper Sushil missed some really good opportunities to put India ahead. The passing by the Indian squad got better as the game progressed but were physically less capable than their Afghani counterparts.

Je Je came to the rescue for India, scoring in the 85th minute. The 18-year-old, Pune FC player came on as a substitute and made a world of difference for India in their attack.

Afghanistan will be mortified with themselves, they played really well and could have easily won the game, or at least deserved a draw. But they were not able to convert their opportunites. Afghanistan had a penalty shout early in the match but the referee didn’t agree to their appeals. Later in added time, the Afghani’s had another decent opportunity but were unable to finish the job off.

The Indian youngsters have shown they have the ability, but we’ll have to wait and see how they perform against the tournament favourites, Maldives, in their match coming up on December 7th, 2009.