India’s poor run continues in the ongoing Granatkin Tournament at Saint Petersburg, Russia as they go down in the penalty shootout against Kyrgyz Republic in a 9-12th position play-off clash on Tuesday.
Akash Mishra gave the Indian U19 side the lead in the 74th minute but Kyrgyz Republic midfielder Emir Sigaybaev restored parity in the game with a late equaliser in the 88th minute.
After the match ended 1-1 after regulation time, the Kyrgyz colts sealed the fate of the game by winning the penalty shootout 3-1.
Floyd Pinto’s boys were off to a terrible start as Sumit Rathi was given the marching orders in just the 3rd minute of the game due to a high-boot challenge on opposition custodian Priadkin Artem.
But the India juniors came back strongly and managed to keep a goalless scoreline in the first 45 minutes of the game with a man down.
India came back strongly in the second half and started pushing the opposition by creating numerous goal scoring chances. They came close twice inside the 60 minutes to break the deadlock.
India’s bold and positive approach yielded them the opening goal of the match in the 74th minute when Akash Mishra headed a corner into the back of the net.
Just when Pinto’s boys were closing on to their first win of the competition, opposition midfielder Emir Sigaybaev equalised with a curling shot into the top corner from Azhymambetov Aidar’s cross.
In the penalty shootout, the Kyrgyz side netted all their three shots while India scored just one out of their four shots. Only Rohit Danu managed to find the back of the net.
India had lost their two out of their three group stage matches against Russia and Moldova and drew against Bulgaria. They will play their final match of the tournament in the 11th place game on June 13 against the winner of Tajikistan vs Armenia which will be played later today.
.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=640&quality=60)
.jpg?auto=webp&format=pjpg&width=640&quality=60)
