India Get a Historic Point Against Qatar: What it Means & Fan Reactions

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india vs qatar

What a night of football! India have done the unthinkable. The phrases reverbed in the ears of the ardent Indian football fans. India managed to hold Asian Champions Qatar to 0-0 in an away fixture at the Jassim Bin Hamad Stadium. 

Stimac rung-in the changes, as he had mentioned which saw Subasish Bose and Brandon Fernandes make way for Mandar Rao Desai and Sahal Abdul Samad respectively. The gaffer went for more pace on the flanks and the guile and craft of Sahal at the centre of midfield.

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu was the hero on the night for the Blues as he produced a string of wonderful saves to keep India in the game. A stat that would do more justice to his performance is the fact that Qatar had a goal in every 4 shots on target in their previous games. Against India, they fired 25 shots on target, and failed to get even one. 

The Indian defence stood tall as well as Sandesh Jhingan produced some eye-catching last-ditch tackles, while the likes of Adil Khan read the game well and thwarted any aerial threat that came India’s way. The full-backs were very good as well as they didn’t let Qatar play a lot from the wings, restricting their line of attack. Defence, which was supposedly India’s Achilles heel, stood out and punched above their weight. 

india vs qatar

Igor Stimac deployed the Indian side to play a counter attacking game, and the Indians did really well to put some pressure on Qatar. The players up the pitch, in the absence of stalwart Sunil Chhetri, rose to the occasion and help-up play well, forcing Qatar to drop back in numbers, allowing the Indian defence more time. 

Qatar threw kitchen sink at India, but failed to find that one goal, with India becoming the only Asian team to get a point or more from Qatar this year. The magnitude of the performance is better depicted by the stat: ‘The only teams Qatar have played against in 2019, but failed to score are: Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, and of course India now. 

This result means a lot for the Indian football team, who have been on the rise for some years now, both in rankings and performance, without being able to sniff a significant result. But this results gives a lot of hope and promise and with an experienced gaffer like Stimac at the helm, this is set to be the new dawn for Indian football, which shall have a new and different style of play, a lot of runners in the team, and a team full of youthful exuberance. 

It is indeed interesting times for the Indian football fans, who now see hope of the team progressing in the FIFA World Cup 2022 and AFC Asian Cup 2023 joint-qualifiers. 

As the clock struck 12 at night in India, the fans went crazy as the final whistle was blown and the Indian football community took to Twitter to express their happiness. 

Here are some of the reactions:

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