Soccer

Despite Sunil Chhetri’s first half goal, 10-men Bangladesh manage to hold the title favorites in the SAFF Championship group stage match

Sunil Chhetri scored in the 26th minute of the match, to give India 1 goal advantage against Bangladesh in the SAFF cup match. There was no surprise to see the superior team in front, in the early stages of the match. Despite the goal, Bangladesh equalized and managed to hold India till 90 minutes

By Vaibhaw Tiwari

Sunil Chhetri scored in the 26th minute of the match, to give India 1 goal advantage against Bangladesh in the SAFF cup match. There was no surprise to see the superior team in front, in the early stages of the match. Everyone knew that there was going to be a goal and it was only a matter of when it’d come.

The five-team tournament began on Friday. Before this match, Bangladesh met with Sri Lanka and Nepal played the Maldives. Both the games ended with a 1-0 scoreline, in favor of Bangladesh and Nepal respectively. Although the Indian team is the favorite to win this tournament, they are not willing to take anything for granted. With the Asian Cup around the corner, the Indian team management is seeing this competition as an opportunity to try out different things. They would want to send in a strong team, that can be a title contender in the coming Asian Cup.

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Earlier during an interview, Chhetri had acknowledged that Bangladesh was a fierce opponent. ‘In the two matches we played against Bangladesh in the last few months, it has been very tough,’ the Indian captain had added. But it didn’t look tough enough when a well-released ball by Pritam Kotal found Udanta Singh, who in turn was able to cut it back in for the Indian forward and leading goal scorer Sunil Chhetri. He made no mistake with the opportunity and the ball ended in the top corner of the net.

In the second half however, the India team looked a little off-color as a result of which, Bangladesh was able to score an equalizer in the 74th minute despite being one man down. It was a well-placed corner Yeasin Arafat scored an amazing diving header to put his team on level terms.

With neither team being able to find a winner the match ended at 1-1.

Vaibhaw Tiwari

Vaibhaw Tiwari is a post graduate in English. A media enthusiast who has a strong hold on communication and content writing. Vaibhaw is currently working as journalist at BusinessUpturn.com and can be reached at [email protected]

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