King’s Cup: India face familiar foes Lebanon
Chiang Mai (Thailand), September 9
Heartbroken but heads held high after their penalty shootout loss to Iraq in the semifinals, India would look to continue their recent domination against Lebanon when they face off in the third-place match of King’s Cup here tomorrow.
India were just 10 minutes away from recording their maiden win over higher-ranked Iraq but the West Asian country equalised (2-2) though a debatable penalty and then went on to win the semifinal match 5-4 in the shootout.
Head coach Igor Stimac had lashed out at the referee for “robbing” India of a victory. Captain Gurpreet Singh Sandhu was also critical of the 80th-minute penalty awarded to Iraq after their striker Ghadhban was squeezed by two Indian defenders inside the box during a high-ball tussle.
India will, however, gain a lot of confidence from the feisty fight against the 70th-ranked Iraq and the world No. 99 India will hope to sign off the tournament with a win and bronze.
India and Lebanon had played against each other three times this year and Stimac’s side have won twice.
Sandhu urged his teammates to build on the performance against Iraq.
“It’s a hard result to digest, we could’ve won the game. The second penalty was questionable. But we did much better than what people would have thought. We just need to believe in ourselves,” he said.
