Hyderabad : Syria defeated India 3-0 in Intercontinental Cup decider at GMC Balayogi Athletic Stadium, Hyderabad on Monday to win the trophy.
Mahmoud Al Aswad (7’), Daleho Irandust (76’) and Pablo Sabbag (90+6’) scored for Syria.
Syria raced their way to the title defeating Mauritius and India 2-0 & 3-0 respectively. India, the hosts, finished at the bottom of the table.
Syria dominated from start, and opened the scoring in 7th minute, with Aswad netting past Indian Goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu.
Despite Indian team keeping Syria in check, in 2nd half, Irandust doubled the Syrian lead 2-0 in 76th minute, marking his shot from right flank corner.
With over a minute left in added time, Syria once again struck the hosts on a counter to score their third goal of the match. Mahmoud Al-Mawas made a terrific run into the box before setting up Pablo Sabbag to tap home from close range.
Syria became the 3rd Country to win the International Cup after India (2018, 2023) & Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (2022).
New Indian Head coach Manolo Marquez in post match interview said he was angry in the first half as he felt his side was scared in the first few minutes. He said that 3-0 wasn’t a fair reflection of the game and felt they deserved to score. Marquez felt his side were brave in the second half of the match.
“I am angry with the first half. I don’t like teams who are scared. We were completely scared in the first minutes. Their goal was an action we could avoid. I’m satisfied with the second half. I think 3-0 is not what happened in the game. I think we at least deserved to score. It was a very similar game to Syria vs Mauritius. They have very good players in counter-attack, and they killed us. We need to keep going. I repeat, in the second half, not only the attitude, the positioning, we were brave,” said Marquez.
He also revealed that the team played better in 2nd half. They kept Syria in complete check with attack and defense.
“At least today we had chances. The other day, practically, we didn’t arrive. Today we created some chances. We will score, yes, but today, I think we cannot say anything about not having this player or that player. The goalkeeper saved two or three very difficult balls. The performance in the second half is a positive. The team was 1000 times better in the second half than in the first half. We were very brave,” said Marquez.
