'Can Take a Good Lesson From Here', Says India Head Coach Igor Stimac After AFC Asian Cup Exit

The Indian football team ended their AFC Asian Cup campaign with a 0-1 loss against the Syrian side at the Al Bayt Stadium on Tuesday the 23rd of January.

The head coach of the Indian side Igor Stimac congratulated the winning side and lauded their composure.

“Congratulations to the Syrian team; they deserved it in the end. They were more powerful and more relaxed in those final third moments,” the coach said.

The loss polished off a tournament in which the Blue Tigers failed to notch up a single point losing all three of their games.

“It was a good learning experience for us, I would say, because overall, in three games, we proved that we can compete at this level. Everybody sees what the missing points are in the Indian play: scoring goals, which comes with having good goal scorers in the team – people with confidence in front of the goal,” Stimac said.

“We can take a good lesson from here, and in the next edition of the AFC Asian Cup, we’re going to be much stronger, definitely,” he added.

The Croatian coach opened up about the goal-scoring issues that plagued India at the continental event as they failed to register a goal across the three group games.

“The team produced enough chances to score goals, and you all know in India why we are not scoring goals at the international level. It should happen when we start having Indian players in the centre-forward position; then, we’re going to have many more goal-scorers for the national team,” the 56-year-old said.

Stimac also lauded Rahul Bheke and Subhasish Bose for their performance in the game.

“Bheke and Subhasish were quite good today, confident in everything. Although Bheke getting booked so early into the game didn’t make it easier for him, he controlled everything and every situation in a quite satisfying way,” the coach continued.

Stimac opined that the gameplan he headed into the final Group B game with did not pan out as he expected.

“I think our biggest problem today was that we had a clear plan to take the game into the 60th minute with a clean sheet and to bring on fresh legs, which I was hoping would give us something and make an impact on the team in the last 30 minutes, which obviously didn’t happen,” Stimac concluded.