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From a scrappy slow start to absolute domination over its neighbours, Floyd Pinto's U18 Indian side showed a lot of character to bring home the nation's maiden SAFF U18 Championship.
In the tournament opener against Bangladesh, the Indian colts had a difficult start. Pinto's boys found it extremely tough to get a break-through against a very defensive Bangladesh side. The delta nation defended for most parts of the game with resolution and intensity, not allowing the Indian colts any bit of space to exploit. Accordingly, India resorted to set-pieces to open up the Bangladeshi defence and got agonizingly close to scoring through a Sumit Rathi header in the 36th minute and that was that.
India needed a win in the second game to advance to the semi-finals as they took on Sri Lanka. The Lankans had already lost 3-0 to Bangladesh in the earlier game, making things easier for the India colts. The game started in similar fashion in line with the Bangladesh tie, with India piling men forward and creating a spree of chances but they could not break through the ultra-defensive Lankan side. The Lankans somehow scraped through to half-time with the scores goalless despite India's dominance on the field.
India continued with the same style of play in the second half with the belief that they could score soon and they did. With terrific wing play, India cracked open the Lankan defence and opened the scoring in the 65th Minute through Gurkirat Singh. The Blue colts scored two more in no time through Singh and Aman Chetri to walk out 3-0 winners.
With an improved performance in the last group tie, India looked all set to take on Maldives in the semi-final and registered a big 4-0 win to set up the final date with Bangladesh. Through a similar header from Narender Gahlot on the lines of the goal against Syria, India took the lead early on and went into the break with a 2-0 lead, the other goal being scored from an Maldives own-goal. India continued their offensive onslaught and scored twice late in the game through Manvir Singh and Ningthoinganba Meetei to storm into the final by a 4-0 score.
Tough final
Having drawn with Bangladesh early in the tournament, the final was indeed the toughest clash for Pinto's Boys. Pinto stressed a valiant defensive display in the pre-match press conference in order to win their maiden SAFF U18 title.
India took the lead over the Bengal Tigers as early as the 2nd minute when marksman Vikram Pratap Singh, with a sudden burst of pace, outran two defenders and slotted it home to take India 1-0 ahead. Bangladesh did equalize in the 40th minute but were down to 9-men as opposed to a 10-men India side. The game took a dull turn in the second-half as both the teams looked convinced to take the game into penalties but Ravi Bahadur Rana had other ideas. He blasted a belter of a shot from 30-yards out in Injury time to send the Blue Tigers into an unprecedented lead giving India its first ever SAFF U18 Championship title.
India's Ninthoinganba Meetei was adjudged the 'Most Valuable Player of the Tournament'.
