Hyderabad : India started their Intercontinental Cup campaign with 0-0 tie against 179th rank Mauritius in an unexpected outcome at at the GMC Balayogi Athletic Stadium in Hyderabad on September 3, 2024.
The 1st assignment of Coach Manolo Marquez saw India scoring no goals and ending in a tie despite keeping most of possession. Both teams had only 1 shot on target.
1ST HALF
Anirudh Thapa created 1st chance in 6th minute corner , skimming back of Manvir Singh’s head and almost fell for Chinglensana Singh rushing at the back post, but it missed the centre-back’s head by a whisker.
Mauritius pounced on every counter-attack opportunity they got, with Jordan François causing some trouble with crosses from the right.
On a couple of occasions, the Indians gifted chances to the visitors. In the 20th minute, a slip from Asish Rai allowed Yannick Aristide to drill a low ball from the left but there was no Mauritian players to convert it .
4 minutes later, there was another slip from Lalengmawia as he lost the ball to Quentin Lalsing, who opted to let it fly from 30 yards of which Amrinder made an easy collection.
In 35th minute, India had another chance with Thapa picking out Manvir Singh in the box, who took a touch and stung the gloves of Jean-Louis with a left-footed shot from a narrow angle.
Couple of minutes later Mauritius’ Dyllan Collard laid the ball near the edge of the box for Emmanuel Vincent, who hit a first-time shot a few inches above Amrinder Singh’s crossbar.
Jay Gupta, Thapa and Manvir did create another chance just before 1st half , however, yet again the men in red stopped them.
2ND HALF
In 2nd half, Chhangte tested Mauritius Goalkeeper again, but with 2 brilliant attempts kept his attacks away.
In 54th minute, Jérémy Villeneuve smartly slipped the ball for Lalsing who dragged a left-footed effort wide from 12 yards out. Then substitute Aurélien François missed a couple of chances, first heading wide a Gabriel Caliste cross before blazing over a pin-point cutback from Adrien Botlar with his side-foot.
The momentum shifted back to India in the final 15 minutes as the substitutions of Suresh Singh Wangjam and Subhasish Bose instilled more energy in attack. In the 79th minute, Nandhakumar found space to squeeze a cross from the left but Collard hacked it clear before it could reach Chhangte.
The resulting corner from Chhangte was cleared as far as Sahal, who chested it down from 25 yards out, but his off-balanced volley flew high and wide.
Then it was Sahal’s turn to create, and he picked out Nandhakumar at the top of the box with an intelligent early cross. However, a last-gasp tackle from Jordan took the ball out of the Indian winger’s feet.The Match thereby ended with scoreline 0-0.
Disappointed with the performance of Blue Tigers in his very 1st assignment, Coach Manolo Marquez said, “It’s difficult to play worse than today.”
