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#2 Curacao’s impressive first half display settled the contest
It’s not that India have not played a technically stronger side than Curacao in recent times. The game against China or UAE would justify this. But Curacao are not only better technical quality, their players are far ahead in term of physical aspect.
For the first quarter of the game, Curacao maintained possession and kept waiting for their chance. The Indians were keeping their shape in defence and Curacao hardly got any chance to barge in. But when they unlocked the Indian defence, goals came flooding in.
In the second half, they were a bit uncomfortable probably because of the hot weather but still didn’t allow any more dangers in their own area.
Elson Hooi, Rolieny Bonevacia and Leandro Bacuna have the experience of playing in the foreign shores and incidentally, all three of them scored against India.
Being a Dutch colony for long time, they still have the Dutch flare in their style. One should know great Dutch footballer Patrick Kluivert was their coach until 2016 and he played the team the way his country is known to the world. New coach Remko Bicentini also kept the same style.
