AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers: Sunil Chhetri, Sahal Abdul Samad score in India’s win against Afghanistan

The Indian men’s football team beat Afghanistan 2-1 in its second Group D match of the AFC Asian Cup 2023 Qualifiers third round at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Saturday.

Indian captain Sunil Chhetri (85’) scored a brilliant free-kick while Sahal Abdul Samad (91’) kept composure to score the winner in stoppage time. Zubayr Amiri (88’) scored the only goal for Afghanistan.

With this win, India, 106th in the FIFA rankings, maintained the second position in the Group D points table with six points and a goal difference of +3. Afghanistan, ranked 150th, are third on the points table. Hong Kong, who beat Cambodia 3-0 earlier in the day, are first.

Hosts India, who had beaten Cambodia 2-0 in the opening match, made two changes to their starting 11 for the match against Afghanistan. 

Indian coach Igor Stimac brought in attacking midfielder Ashique Kuruniyan in place of Anirudh Thapa while defender Jeakson Singh came in for Brandon Fernandes.

Both India and Afghanistan settled early into the match but India showed more courage and won five corners inside the first 15 minutes. 

Ashique Kuruniyan and Akash Mishra had their tails up in the rest of the half as India found good spaces between the Afghan defence. However, Indian captain Sunil Chhetri and Manveer Singh could not do enough to test the Afghan goalkeeper Faisal Hamidi.

Afghanistan started controlling the ball better after 25 minutes of play. Sandesh Jhnigan-led Indian backline, however, was equal to the task. 

At the end of the first half, both India and Afghanistan had almost equal ball possession. However, India had four shots on the goal compared to Afghanistan’s zero and had nine corners to Afghanistan’s three.

What was a cagey affair in the first half, turned into an end-to-end game in the next 45 minutes. Afghanistan’s forwards came back to life as Indian goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu was kept busy with a flurry of attacks. India too threatened to score on multiple occasions.

After many opportunities went begging, Sunil Chhetri produced a moment of brilliance in the 85th minute with a curling free-kick on the right of the goal.

While the goal was a sigh of relief for India, Sandesh Jhingan’s loose clearance gifted Afghanistan a crucial corner in the 88th minute. Afghanistan midfielder Zubayr Amiri, who was unmarked, pumped in the header and brought the game back to parity.

With only two minutes of regulation time remaining, India, desperate for a win, kept pressing hard for the winner. Sahal Abdul Samad capitalised on Ashique Kuruniyan’s pass in the first minute of the added time and put it past the Afghanistan goalkeeper to seal the win for India.  

India will next face table-toppers Hong Kong on Tuesday. Teams in each group will play each other once and the eventual group winner and five best runner-ups across all groups will qualify for Asian Cup 2023.

India have played in the AFC Asian Cup on four occasions; 1964, 1984, 2011 and 2019. The team’s best performance at the continental event was a runners-up finish on their debut campaign in 1964.