Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Sometimes Stephen Constantine, the Indian coach can be quite demanding. A hard taskmaster that he is, the Anglo-Cypriot knows his job and has all reasons for his actions. India, on Saturday, played their hearts out extracted revenge in their pre-Olympic ‘home’ tie against Turkmenistan, but received a feedback that said ‘‘we need to be a bit more creative around the penalty area.’’
Constantine couldn’t of been more precise in his judgement, for it should have been a bigger margin than the 1-0 win India managed at the Nehru Stadium, Fatorda, which left them in no man’s land. The result thus left India, despite winning, stranded after the two-leg 2-1 aggregate and enabled Turkmenistan progress into the second round.
Back to ground reality and India, after playing an inspiring second half, found their savior in substitute Ishfaq Ahmed in the 83rd minute of the match. The goal in all ways was a beauty for two reasons and earned full praise by both Constantine and his counterpart Rovshan Mohadov. First, the opposition’s towering Matus Pavel played Berlin Wall all through and the second being the innumerable ‘misses’ that Alex Ambrose, Asim Biswas, Dipankar Roy and Raju Singh had to their name.
The goal was the result of intelligence on the part of Biswas, who laid-up a pass to Ahmed on the edge of the penalty area. Ahmed, playing at this level for the second time — this being his second start after a 10 minute stint in Ashkabad, on receiving unleashed a crisp left-footer that seared into the right corner of the net. Such was the power, that Pavel who brought up some impressive saves in the match, was simply rooted at the first post. In fact, the goal was a lesson to learn for Turkmenistan, who began with promise but then settled into their defensive plan.
