SAFF Championship
Pakistan 2005
It was one of those rare off-days: Cruciani
Sports Reporter from Karachi
There was pin-drop silence in the Bangladesh dressing room after they lost the Fourth SAFF Championship final 2-0 to India on Saturday. The fun and celebration that were prevalent in the Bangladesh dressing room after their previous four matches were replaced by doom and gloom. It looked like as if the white angles were attending a funereal. The boys of Diego Cruciani were upset not only because they lost the final badly but also for disappointing millions of football fans back home, who watched the match live on various television channels.Not a single player was crying but their ice-cool faces showed the agony of not achieving the glory in a memorable month after coming so close. Cruciani, the Argentine coach who taught the players to dream about this glory, however, held his nerve and told that his boys had just a bad day and it cost them the title. "It was a surprise for me because we could not play like the other matches today. Our team contained themselves and did not play good football. They did not move well or passed properly. They also did not show the intelligence in the field," said Cruciani. "It was like a nervous breakdown and the team suddenly were not in their usual self. Some day you play good, some day you don't. It was just like one of those rare off-days. It is very bad luck for us. "India got over us because we let them play. But I don't take the credit off them because they won as the better team in the final. They have matured players and got more speed and skill. They controlled the ball more and that is the reason behind their success."Although Baichung and Mehraj scored in the game for India, Cruciani pointed out that Baichung looked dangerous in the last minutes when Bangladesh desperately tried to attack and left space for the Indian striker, whose second goal took him to join compatriot IM Vijayan as the top scorer in the history of SAFF Championships with nine goals. "I think the whole Indian midfield played superbly today. That's where we lost the game. There defence was also very tight. They marked our strikers who were not effective at all."
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