Indian Team looked very comfortable in the first half and till the midway of second half but after 70 minutes, Our players weren’t able to match the pace of the game and that’s where Oman took advantage and scored two goals to break the hearts of Indian football fans.
Throughout the match, except last 15 minutes, Indian Midfield was playing pretty well. Brandon was given free role to create chances and on the other hand, Anirudh Thapa and Rowlin Borges were playing as Double Pivot. They combined brilliantly in the first half.Before the match started, after looking at the lineup, everyone thought it’s gonna be a basic 4-2-3-1 formation but as the game progressed, Ashique moved a bit centeral and just behind sunil. Sunil and Ashique were playing each other off and combining brilliantly. It became a 4-4-1-1 formation on many occasions.
India was in full control of the match in the first half. Oman weren’t able to create many chances as midfielders didnt allow them to create any space. At times Rahul Bheke was caught out of position but somehow he recovered back. Brandon and Udanta also tracked back to help the defense and Ashique was freed up so that his pace and trickery could be used in the counter attacks.India’s defense was fully stretched in the second half. Adil and Sandesh, both of them came out of position many times which created space behind lines. Omanis were using that space and were creating dangerous attacks.
Left winger of Oman, Al-Mandhar scored both the goals. Rahul Bheke was caught off position during the goals. In the first goal, Gurpreet Singh Sandhu hesitated first to come out of the goal which led to first Omanis goal. Second goal was pure class from Al-Mandhar as he made brilliant turn first and then wrong footed Sandesh to finish it in the top corner.
The match had many positives for India. Performance of Rowlin Borges, Brandon Fernandes, Ashique Kuruniyan and Subhashish Bose were very good. Sunil Chhetri’s performance was as usual brilliant. But everyone could see lack of gametime and fitness caused India the game.