Al Khobar (Saudi Arabia), Nov 7 : After suffering a defeat at the hands of Uzbekistan, India coach Floyd Pinto said that players are determined to do everything to win the next match of the AFC U-19 Championships 2020 Qualifiers.
“It was not the result that we wanted but there’s no time to sulk on the first loss. We have to pick up and dust ourselves off. The recovery process has started and all the players are determined to do everything it takes to win the next match,” All India Football Federation’s (AIFF) website quoted Pinto as saying.
Uzbekistan defeated India by 2-0 on Wednesday. India will now play against Saudi Arabia, who won their opening qualifier against Afghanistan. Moreover, Saudi Arabia bagged the AFC U-19 Championship in 2018.
Pinto is confident that the players will recover both ‘physically and mentally’ to compete in a ‘difficult game’.
“Even though they won (against Afghanistan) 1-0 through a penalty kick, they dominated the game from start to finish and should have scored many more goals. As expected, it will be a difficult game against them. I am confident that the players will recover from the previous result — both physically and mentally — and continue to put their best efforts in,” he said.
Pinto wants to learn from the previous defeat and said there is no reason why they cannot have the desired result.
“I cannot fault the players for the effort put in by them. We played a good first half but in the second, we started slowly, dropped too deep and gave the ball away too much. One of lapse of concentration and they scored. Against Saudi Arabia now, it is imperative that we put on a strong showing in the second half as well and if we can do so, there’s no reason why we can’t gain the result we need,” he said.
India will take on Saudi Arabia on Friday.
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