India left spotting silver lining

The keenly-contested and ill-tempered encounter went down to the wire, decided only through Almada8217;s extra-time strike.

From the beginning, both Argentine wingers worked overtime to give Indian defenders the jitters. But Diwakar Ram and Sandeep Singh warded off the threat and goalkeeper Adrian D8217;Souza came out with some scintillating saves. He made a brilliant clearance in the fourth minute, warding off a controversial penalty corner by Ignacio Gilardi. Shivendra Singh and SV Sunil staged a counter-attack in the 10th minute and that brought India8217;s first penalty corner. Sandeep made no mistake in converting it for the lead.

Quick reply

But the Argentines levelled just four minutes later, when Tomas Argento sent in a cross from the right and Almada slotted the ball in. A few minutes before the break, Argentina came close to taking lead when defender Gilardi8217;s freehit was tapped by Facundo, but the Indian defence rose to the occasion and thwarted his attempt. The incident sparked off a scuffle between the teams forcing umpires to halt the match for six minutes.

The second half was relatively incident free with both sides exercising caution. India got two penalty corners but failed to give India the advantage. Five minutes from time, Argentina got an easy penalty corner but Gilardi8217;s flick narrowly missed the target.

With the match going into extra time, Almada shot home the golden goal to seal the issue in Argentina8217;s favour.