AFC Asian Cup - 2019 UAE

[PKBasu]

Oh, what utter crap! Thailand draws with UAE, and we lose 0-1 to Bahrain and are knocked out. Pathetic way to end a tournament that began so promisingly.

[Rajiv]

And the coach resigns,....more to do with a larger picture of no improvement in sight atleast in his lifetime.

[jaydeep]

The Bahrain team dominated the match but we defended well for 90 minutes ... One mistake in injury time and we were out of the tournament.

Also, the Indian head coach, Stephen Constantine, announced his resignation after the loss ... The AIFF has accepted his decision and thanks him for his all contribution.

[arjun2761]

Looks like we have built a good defense and have a good goalie. In the first 2 games we were able to create some chances and shots on goal on breakaways. However, in all 3 matches, our possession percentage was in the 30s and Bahrain outshot us 18-3 and had a 13-1 edge in corners which speaks to very poor ability to possess the ball. This indicates that the team has very average quality but is achieving the best results from the quality that they have. Looks like we will need to improve the quality of players before we can expect a further movement up the rankings (and conversely with a tactically poor coach we can go down the rankings quite a bit since Bahrain is only #113).

[jayakris]

Due to a death in the family, I was away for a few days. Only got to check score updates a couple of times during the last match. It only happens to India that circumstances conspire so badly to keep us out of success. I guess I went through this with my second love team (the USA team) doing something so similar in the last world cup qualification's final day. Any number of goals would have been fine except us conceding a goal, as we reached the final few minutes, and the worst possible result happened. Just so sad.

I will be sad to see Constantine go. The man maximized everything that he had at his disposal. No question. But luck was just not on his side in the end.