Godwin Isaac K / News Trail
Doha: Despite an unexciting end for India in their opening match against Australia in the Asian Cup 2023 in Doha, on Saturday, thousands of Indian fans who thronged the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium were happy to support their country’s team.
Even though Australia dominated the game on the field, it was India’s fans who made most of the noise in the crowd of 36,253 who turned up to witness the match.
High-pitched cheers sounded across the stadium to greet India’s rising number of defensive clearances as the pressure rose. And that was accentuated by India’s rare attempts at goal, including Sunil Chhetri’s flying header that went wide in the first half.
After giving an enthusiastic welcome to the Indian team when they arrived at the Doha International Airport in Doha, Indian football fans in Qatar kept up their support at the stadium, with members of several Indian expat organisations in Qatar turning up en masse at the stadium to cheer for Blue Tigers.
Many Indians said the performance of the team was better than expected.
“It was an expected result that we will lose but the Australians were not as creative as they were in the World Cup. And I was expecting us to score a goal in the first half. Defensively, Indians played beyond our expectations, but we were defending desperately, and that is what led to our mistakes and we gifted Australians those two goals,” D Ravi Kumar, a senior sports journalist and former Managing Editor, Inside Qatar, told News Trail.
Australians were not better than us tactically or in a creative perspective but they had a physical advantage,” he added.
“I would say we put up a spirited performance against a world-class team like Australia, and it’s a success-like result that we were able to defend so strongly, with no goal scored by Australians in the first 45 minutes. Remember that we are 102 in global ranking whereas Australia is ranked 25th,” Adv. Muhammed Iqbal V, Secretary, Qatar Indian Football Forum (QIFF), said.
“Our first half performance was amazing and the atmosphere was unbelievable as everyone was cheering only India. We did have a good first half but couldn’t carry it till the end and I felt that we were only concentrating on defending rather than scoring. We were unlucky at the end because both the goals were defensive errors by our team,” said Nandita Nayak, a long-term AFC volunteer at the stadium who was cheering for team India.
She said it was a very good sign that the Indian team was getting so much support outside the country and that is especially because it is Qatar. “The atmosphere in the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium was electric in hot weather but it felt like even the crowd came with a defensive mindset as they were pumped up as the Indian team stood strong and every block, every clearance, was cheered,” she added.
“It was a tremendous atmosphere but I don’t think anyone in the stadium would have come with a thought that India would win this game. I went for that atmosphere and it would have been a much more memorable game if the results were the other way around. The national anthem that we sang at the stadium is still ringing in my ears,” another spectator, Unnimoy Kuniyil, said.
Many spectators were disappointed that after putting a lot of effort into defending, the Indian team could have gone home with a point rather than losing from mistakes made by them.
