World Cup qualifiers, India vs Afghanistan: Areas Blue Tigers Need To Improve In To Win Return Leg In Guwahati

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India faced Afghanistan in their third World Cup qualifiers game. They needed to win this match, but ended it with a 0-0 draw following a disappointing performance. The Blue Tigers have another match against Afghanistan on March 26 and they will absolutely need to win that.

However, for that, they need to pick up the slack and there are a few areas they need to improve. There were some dangerous tries from the Afghanistan side, but the Indian defense managed to stop all of those advances from them.

They managed to create a lot of attacking chances, but in vain. Even after using all of the attackers in hand, even the greatest chances went wide for the Blue Tigers. A few chances missed by Manvir Singh, Vikram Pratap Singh, and Subhasish Bose especially come to mind.

Talking to the media in the post-match press conference, coach Igor Stimac said, “We were much closer to win this game with the chances we created, but obviously the same old problem was following us. We tried all the players we had in our frontline but nothing worked.”

He added, “There are few areas we need to improve because we complicated simple things in offensive areas. The defense did well but we need to be much better in passing in midfield and much better in attacking in the box when the crosses are coming from the front.”

Afghanistan had some decent chances of scoring, but they couldn't penetrate the Indian backline. Still, Subhasish Bose is a good choice in the defense. Even with the talented Jeakson Singh’s return after the injury, the gameplay in the midfield left a lot to be desired.

However, India still had a lot of attacking chances which none of the forwards were able to finish. Even the Blue Tigers' ace Sunil Chhetri looked to be out-of-form. Keeping coach Stimac's words true, the Indian football team desperately need their attackers to do better in the final third.