India defeated Pakistan 4-0 in their SAFF Championship opener at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru. Sunil Chhetri bagged a hat-trick and Udanta Singh scored the fourth goal for India. Despite the scoreline, India did not put in a particularly impressive performance and the match was essentially over in the first fifteen minutes due to two Pakistani errors. India had 70% of the ball possession and strung together twice as many passes as their opponents. Pakistan never really got into the India box and finished the game with zero shots on target. The non-football incidents provided the crowd with their share of entertainment. India coach Igor Stimac sparked a fracas just before halftime when he slapped the ball out of a Pakistani player’s hands while the latter attempted to take a throw-in. There were also two pitch invaders who ran onto the field but only aspired to hug Sunil Chhetri.
The Pakistan team landed in Bengaluru only twelve hours prior to the kickoff, making them look every bit the tired, jet-lagged outfit they were expected to be. This is just their fourth match in years after their multi-year ban from football was overturned. The players, an assortment of local players and foreigners of Pakistani origin, are still getting used to each other on the pitch. Even though their physicality looked like a potential threat, it was difficult to remember a spell where the visitors strung four passes together. This is a team at the very beginning of their journey, and they can only get better from here.
However, for India, this is one of their best runs in the past two decades. This is their seventh-straight unbeaten game, with six of those wins. The team is looking forward to tougher opponents in the King’s Cup in September and the Asian Cup in January. Nepal and Kuwait in their next two games here will be a much tougher task than what the rankings might suggest. Nevertheless, they should celebrate the victory. The captain’s hat-trick marked an emphatic start to the SAFF Championships. For an encounter that had a lot more people watching than usual, the 4-0 win was an excellent result.
