The Indian men’s football team put up a great fight Tuesday evening, September 10, as they held the reigning Asian Football Cup Champions Qatar to a draw, with a brilliant display from goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu. Notably, no other Asian footballing side has managed to draw, much less beat Qatar this year, the Indian contingent is the first draw them for a goal-less draw, and especially in a World Cup Qualifiers match. 

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Qatar was dominant but India's Sandhu kept cool

The statistics at the end of the match at the Jassim Bin Hammad Stadium in Doha on September 10, showed that Qatar had taken 27 shots as opposed to India’s 2, with 15 to 1 corners in favour of Qatar. However, it was the interim captain and goalkeeper Gurpreet, who in the absence of the Sunil Chhetri, stepped up with an outstanding performance at the goal and halted the Qatari team in their tracks. Right-winger Udanta Singh came close to pulling off a massive upset on the reigning Asian Cup Champions, but as it stands, it was a brilliant effort by the players. The Indian team did exceedingly well and managed to keep their composure to earn this historic draw.

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India's first point towards the Qatar World Cup qualifiers 2022

The game was heavily one-sided with Qatar having more possession on the ball and creating many attacking chances, it was India that was forced to resign to defending and making sure the 62-world-ranked team doesn’t score. India is currently ranked at 103. This is India’s first point in Group E of the Fifa WC qualifiers, the fight for reaching the top two in the group is now on. India had previously suffered a defeat to Oman.

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