AFC U-16 Championship: Iran defeat India 3-0

The Statesman – TABRIZ, After the high came the low as India suffered a 0-3 defeat to hosts Iran at the AFC U-16 Football Qualifiers here on Friday.

India entered the match high on confidence following a 5-0 thrashing of Bahrain in their first match on Wednesday, but could not sustain the momentum as Iran proved too hot to handle at the Gostaresh Foolad Stadium.

Midfielder Mohammad Sharifi opened the scoring for the hosts in the 17 minute, his colleague Amir Khodamoradi doubled the lead by finding the net just before the half time (43rd), while Mohammad Ghaderi took the match beyond India’s grasp with his side’s third strike in the 56th minute.

The medio, who scored Iran’s third goal 10 minutes into the second half, was substituted by chief coach Hamid Ali Dousti in the 66th minute.

India coach Nicolai Adam, also in charge of India’s U-17 World Cup team, made three substitutions after the change of ends and even beefed up the forward line by bringing in Rahul Kannoly Praveen, but the move did not yield the desired results.

Barely two days after their thumping win over Bahrain, Adam’s wards looked a far cry from their dominant self as the Iranian players, egged on by the home crowd, controlled the game that was dubbed the team’s “real test” by the coach in the pre-match press conference.

This is the qualifying tournament for next year’s AFC U-16 Championship, which will be held in India from September 15 to October 2.

Congratulating Iran on the victory, head coach Nicolai Adam added with a smile, “We look forward to having rematch against Iran in the AFC U-16 Finals next year in India.”

“With due respect to Iran, we played much stronger Teams during the exposure teams in Germany and even won. But to win a game like this you need to play without making mistakes, which we were not able to,” he maintained.

“It was in the last 20 minutes that we played Football.

The second goal at the stroke of interval killed us,” he stated. “The boys are young and we have time to prepare them for the bigger challenges that stay ahead.”

“We could not reproduce our good performance which we put up against Bahrain. In my opinion, we lost because we were weak, and not because Iran were strong,” he commented.

“It was not a good match for both sides as there were plenty of long balls played by both sides while Players from this age should play more on the pitch,” he felt.