Igor Stimac admits that team made many mistakes that cost them two points

Indian football team head coach Igor stimac was critical about his team’s performance after their underwhelming 1-1 draw against Bangladesh in their opening match of  2021 SAFF championship in Male on Monday. Sunil Chhetri opened the scoring for Stimac’s side in the 27th minute before Yeasin Arafat equalized for the Bengal Tigers in the 74th minute. It was a disappointing result for India as they played majority of the second half against 10-man after Bishwanath Ghosh was sent off for denying a goal scoring opportunity with a reckless foul on Liston Colaco.

In the post-match press conference, Stimac congratulated both teams for their performances but admitted that India were the guilty party for the end result.

Stimac said “I would like to congratulate both teams because this was the best game of football among these last three games (between India and Bangladesh). We are the only guilty party for the end result. We had everything in control, took a one-goal lead and had one player more than the opponents – and then, for some unknown reasons, we started giving away the ball and making unnecessary mistakes,”

“And that (the equaliser) is what happens when you boost the confidence of your opponents. When you give them chances, they’ll take it.” he added.

India are considered as the favourites to win the competition and came into the match as the superior side, but on the day, there was very little to choose between both teams. Bangladesh played with more intensity and the Blue Tigers kept making too many mistakes.

“We were punished today, for not being reasonable in certain situations. We did not use our experience. I expected much more from the team in that sense. We gave the ball away too many times. There was an unnecessary nervousness among players which is difficult to explain. When you don’t feel much pressure, why would you give the ball away? I don’t understand that and we need to work on it,” he explained.

The Croatian further added, “But, anyway, it was a great game. Congratulations to the Bangladesh football team, they came back and it is what it is. We need to look forward now – can’t spend a lot of time analysing this match because we have more games ahead.”

India need a lot of improvement in the attacking department

The tournament is conducted in the round-robin format with each of the five teams playing each other once and the top two teams in the group at the end will go through to the final. Meanwhile the Blue Tigers came into the competition without much preparation and the last match they played was two friendlies against Nepal in the first week of September.

“We have a total of four games, like everyone else. We need to get as many points as possible and then you’ll see. There are three more games which we need to play well. I want to say that our boys played well for about 75 minutes. They played progressive football, made reasonable passes, arrived at dangerous positions on the pitch and so on.

“However, in the remaining 15 minutes, we were not organised, gave the ball away too many times and made many mistakes. We need to work on that and then we’ll be okay,” he said. “We gave Bangladesh simple chances to counter-attack and that helped them score. It was us, who made the mistakes. I could even say that we could’ve passed the ball among the back four all day and nobody would have attacked us.”

He further added, “For me, as a coach, it was hard to see the team failing to break the opposition’s lines and make good passes. Of course, it’s difficult to expect 100% passing accuracy at this level, but as a coach, I also need to expect better passing than this. We made too many mistakes in such a short time.”

Stimac wasn’t happy with the refereeing in the competition.

He said “(Apart from the red card) there was also a penalty in the first half – there was a handball after the cross if you noticed. The referee didn’t give it. There were some strange decisions today, favourable to someone.”

The Indian team certainly needs to improve a lot when it comes to the attacking department.
They were not able to break the opposition defence with penetrative balls and quick inter-passing . Stimac could consider bringing in Sahal Abdul Samad for the upcoming fixtures as the Kerala Blasters midfielder is not afraid to take on defenders and has the ability to make things happen with his silky skills.

India will next play Sri Lanka on October 7.