THE BLOG BY CPD FOOTBALL | The World of Indian football and beyond by Chris Punnakkattu Daniel

2012 NEHRU CUP: India 0-0 Nepal

Subrata Pal in action

The Indian national team has been held to a goalless draw at the 2012 Nehru Cup by neighbouring Nepal.

The match was scheduled to kick-off at 19.00 IST, but it had to be delayed for 30 minutes due to heavy rain in Delhi.

Both teams had their difficulties on the waterlogged pitch at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, but Nepal looked the better side in the early stages of the match. The Nepalese team displayed an improved performance in comparision to the previous games and India had no proper asnwer to give for a long time.

It took almost half an hour before Wim Koevermans’ boys finally started a few attempts to challenge the Nepalese box under difficult conditions. But none of the attempts were directed on target, while Nepal did their best to keep the Indians busy with attacks on the other half of the field.

A poorly taken freekick by Anthony Pereira in the 45th minute was the only notable attempt on target by the Indian team in the first half.

The scoreline remained 0-0 at half-time and Nepal coach Krishna Thapa was certainly the happier man in the changing room.

India came out of the breather with an improved gameplan but the team led by Sunil Chhetri failed to score any goals against a spirited Nepalese side.

Nepal managed to keep the clean sheet till the final whistle courtesy to delay tactics and registered a suprising point against the defending champions.

More details and exclusive updates on the the NEHRU CUP will be available at www.facebook.com/cpd81

.

2012 NEHRU CUP
at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Delhi

INDIA 0-0 NEPAL

.

GOALS
none

.

LINE-UPS

India
1-Subrata Pal; 2-Denzil Franco, 3-Raju Eknath Gaikwad, 19-Gouramangi Moirangthem Singh, 22-Syed Rahim Nabi; 14-Anthony Pereira, 20-Mehtab Hussain, 6-Lenny Rodrigues (77′ 28-Jewel Raja Sheikh), 15-Clifford Miranda (46′ 24-Robin Singh); 26-Francis Fernandes; 11-Sunil Chhetri [C]

Unused Subs
Subhasish Roy Chowdhury, Karanjit Singh; 4-Nirmal Chetri, Gurwinder Singh, Alwyn George, 8-Sanju Pradhan, Manandeep Singh

Nepal
16-Kiran Chemjong; 19-Sagar Thapa [C], 32-Rohit Chand, 3-Biraj Maharjan, 5-Bikash Singh Chhetri, 13-Sandip Rai; 15-Raju Tamang, 23-Jagjeet Shrestha, 17-Bhola Nath Silwal (90+2′ 10-Anil Gurung); 11-Jumanu Rai (88′ 9-Santosh Sahukhala), 21-Bharat Khawas

Unused Subs

.

MATCH OFFICIALS

Referee
Vladislav Tseytlin (Uzbekistan)

Assistant Referees

4th Official

.

BOOKINGS

Yellow Cards
45′ Sandip Rai (Nepal)
62′ Biraj Maharjan (Nepal)
84′ Rohit Chand (Nepal)

Yellow-Red Cards
none

Red Cards
90′ Bikash Singh Chhetri (Nepal)

More details and exclusive updates on the the NEHRU CUP will be available at www.facebook.com/cpd81