Sunday, August 30, 2009

India have to raise their game to retain Nehru Cup

New Delhi, Aug 30: India may have made the final without any palpitations, but not many are giving them a chance of retaining the Nehru Cup football title they won two years ago beating the same Syrians in the final.

The home team would, however, back themselves to send Syria packing in front of home crowd, a feat they managed in 2007. Back then India lost to Syria 2-3 in the league phase and went on to beat the visitors in the final. This time,too, India lost 0-1 in the inconsequential league match against Syria on Saturday.

Syria are the only unbeaten side at the round-robin stage and there was some suspense about who do they play in Monday’s final till it was belatedly revealed that India were through after their facile victory over Sri Lanka as no-one cared to flip through the rule book to see how a tie is resolved. The inconsequential last league game gave both the teams to ponder about a couple of things.

No comments: