The Indian men’s football team was held to a 1-1 draw by 10-man Bangladesh in their SAFF Championship 2021 opener on Monday. Yeasin Arafat’s 74th minute diving header cancelled out Sunil Chhetri’s strike in the 26th minute of the match as both the teams walked away from the match with a point each. This was the first match of the tournament for India while it was a second for Bangladesh. Owing to the draw, Bangladesh now have four points from two matches. The top two teams from the group of five will advance to the final, where the winner of the championship will be decided.
India next play Sri Lanka on October 7 while Bangladesh will take on Maldives on the same day. Currently Bangladesh and Nepal (who beat Maldives in their first match) are in the positions to qualify for the final.
Sunil Chhetri put India in the lead in the 27th minute with a fantastic one-touch finish to Udanta Singh’s pass. Udanta was play through on the right and he cut back the ball to Chhetri, who made no mistake and took just one touch to find the back of the net.
Bangladesh had a chance to equalise soon after but Jamal Bhuyan’s dangerous free kick went just across the face of the goal. In the 39th minute, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu defended India’s lead when he pulled off a solid save to deny Rakib Hossain. It was a fantastic counter-attack from Bangladesh and Saad Uddin had gone beyond the Indian backline. While he was surrounded, he passed the ball to Rakib on the left, whose shot was parried away by Gurpreet.
Bangladesh had a couple of chances to find the back of the net but their inability to finish the move cost them.
Bangladesh started the second half with energy but in the 54th minute, they went down to 10 men after Bishwanath Ghosh was shown a straight red card for a foul on Liston Colaco. Liston was through on goal and Bishwanath was the last defender and brought down the Indian.
Despite going a man down, Bangladesh did not give up and kept pressing India. In the 61st minute, Bangladesh goalkeeper Anisur Rahman denied Manvir Singh and Udanta with a fantastic double save to keep Bangladesh in the game.
Bangladesh kept doing a number of things right in the midfield but they just were sharp enough in the final third to put India at greater risk. But they constantly won duels in the midfield and looked dangerous every time they went up the pitch in the Indian half.
They were finally rewarded for their perseverance in the 74th minute when their youngster Yeasin Arafat scored his first senior goal to bring Bangladesh level. Jamal Bhuyan took a good corner kick and Arafat found the back of the net with a diving header.
The crowd that had lost its voice after the Bangladesh red card found its zeal again as the trumpet started playing again and they were screaming and shouting once more, egging Bangladesh to go for more.
India showed a little more urgency in the last 10 minutes to try and get a winner but it was not enough and Bangladesh did extremely well to get a well-deserved draw out of the match.
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