International Friendly: Kuwait humiliate India

India's preparations for the 2011 AFC Asian Cup suffered a major set back with a 1-9 international friendly defeat at the hands of Kuwait at the Al-Wahda Stadium in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Kuwait was leading 3-0 at the break, but after the breather added six more goals to humiliate the Indians and Bob Houghton will surely be a worried man with less then two month's to go until the Asian Cup.

I went through the stats available to me. And if I am right then this was the worst defeat since a 1976 Merdeka Cup 0-8 defeat against South Korea. And the last time we lost 1-9 was also in the Merdeka Cup in 1971 against the then Burma. But our worst ever defeat was a 1-11 trashing at the hands of the Soviet Union in Moscow in a friendly in 1955, followed by a 1-10 trashing by Yugoslavia in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. For Bob Houghton it was the worst defeat in his time with Team India. Before that Bob's worst defeat as India coach had come in September 2006, a 1-7 trashing against Saudi Arabia.

The West Asian champions simply took apart the South Asian champions. But the Indian seniors are only on paper South Asian champions as we actually played with our Under-23 boys in Dhaka last year. Bob Houghton stuck to the same eleven who played against Iraq the other night due to lack of options caused by injuries.

But the gulf in standard became evident this evening. Bader Al Mutawa was the hero of the day for Kuwait scoring four of their nine goals, while Yousef Naser Al Sulaiman, Jarah Al Ataiqi, Fahad Al Enezi, Khaled Khalaf and Hammad Naif Al Enezi also got their names onto the extra long scoresheet. Substitute Mohammed Rafi scored the consolation goal for India on a night which does make us worried about our matches against Australia, South Korea and Bahrain; who all on paper are stronger then Kuwait.

After having played and scored against Scunthorpe on Saturday, PIO Michael Chopra was a spectator to India's match against Kuwait. And the good news is that he is not put off by the performance and result. Chops still wants to play for us, only the paperwork would have to be done.


MATCH STATS

India 1-9 (0-3) Kuwait - Goals: 0-1 Yousef Naser Al Sulaiman (20'), 0-2,0-5,0-7,1-9 Bader Al Mutawa (25',55',66',90'), 0-3 Jarah Al Ataiqi (29',pen), 0-4 Fahad Al Enezi (51'), 0-6 Khaled Khalaf (56'), 1-7 M. Mohammed Rafi (70'), 1-8 Hammad Naif Al Enezi (75')

INDIA
1-Subrata Pal; 17-Irungbam Surkumar Singh, 19-Gouramangi Moirangthem Singh, 5-Anwar, 22-Syed Rahim Nabi; 23-Steven Benedic Dias, 41-Rakesh Masih, 30-Climax Lawrence [C], 28-Anthony Pereira; 9-Abhishek Yadav, 18-Sushil Kumar Singh
Substitutes: 16-Jagroop Singh, 6-Baldeep Singh, 12-Deepak Kumar Mondal, 13-James Lukram Singh, 14-Mahesh Gawli, 26-Mohammed Rafi, 27-Mehrajuddin Wadoo, 29-Jagpreet Singh