Indian colts go down to Serbia in second friendly game

SportsCafe Desk

BySportsCafe Desk, SportsCafe Editor

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After a 0-2 loss in the first match, the India U-19 football team went down 1-3 to Serbia in the second friendly game during it's exposure tour of Europe. These friendlies are a part of the preparations of the junior team for the U-19 Asian Championship which is scheduled to take place next year.

The Indian Colts are touring Europe for proper exposure and before heading on to Serbia, they tried their luck at the four-nation (Croatia , France, Slovenia, India) tournament where they failed to win against all the teams. However, coach Floyd Pinto has mentioned that his team put up a good show and were competitive against players of elite level experiences and hence moved forward to take up Serbia as their next challenge. The youngsters put up a valiant fight but suffered a 0-2 loss in the first friendly on the 13th of September. The second encounter against Serbia bore a similar result. 

India started the game on a high note as they tried to put pressure on the Serbian defenders resulting to which they earned an early corner. Captain Amarjit Singh put a good cross to find midfielder Jeakson, who failed to convert his header into a goal. 

India didn't realise that the Serbians played smart and kept themselves calm when the Indian players tried to put pressure. The Serbians made full use of small loopholes of the Indian footballers to intercept the ball and tried to counter-attack. Bojic Bojan cut across three defenders and nailed the first goal for Serbia with the similar counter-attacking strategy. 

Serbians then compelled the Indian goalkeeper to punch a corner cross ball at the 30th minute. This was followed by Jeakson receiving the ball which was unfortunately intercepted again by Ognjenovic Marko and he didn't think twice before taking the lead for his team. Indian defenders failed to keep up with Serbian attacking strategies resulting to which the hosts earned their third goal. 

The Indian midfielders and strikers failed to carry the ball ahead but after a few struggling attempts, Aman put a through ball to Abhijit on the right wing. Abhijit then put a cross into the box where Rahim Ali received it and took the shot to open India's account. 

In the second half too, the Indian youngsters tried to do their best to pressurize the Serbians but their strong defence nullified all the Indian attacking moves. Nongdamba Naorem came in as a substitute and bothered the Serbian defence with his attacking techniques but it was too late for anything to be done to turn the game in India's favours and the match ended with a 3-1 win for Serbia.

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