Kathmandu, NEPAL - Disappointed Maldives coach, Istavan Urbanyi has said he feels sorry for what happened against India and he wants to thank the supporters and players despite the losing against rivals India in the semifinal.
“I feel so sorry about what had just happened tonight"
“I just want to thank the supporters for the players for this tournament. I think we made it memorable and we had lot of good moments but the last one is a sad one”
Urbanyi praised for the performance of the players. He added that he did everything to win the tournament.
“I don’t want to say we did our best, but we did everything to win this game and the players had a hard work tonight and they deserve more than this. So generally speaking I feel sorry about them very much”
Speaking to media about the late changes he brought, he said that he waited for extra time.
“First of all, if the result is zero zero, we have extra time. So you have to think about the extra time as well. And before that there is no need to do the changes. I was waiting for the extra time. My plan was to make substitutions when the extra time comes. Because there wasn’t any player who should be substituted”
He also said that Indian played to kill them and lots of crucial tackles were conceded by his players.
“Let’s not start with the penalty, let’s start generally. India just tried to kill us in the first 40 minutes. It was a very bad tackle against Imran right at the beginning, that guy even didn’t watch the ball. They wanted to hurt which is a provocation. Every single time after 2-3 seconds they just made a tackle. And in the end Sentey (Ali FAsir) got a yellow card for nothing.”
Speaking about the controversial decision while keeper brought down Ashfaq inside the box, he said it was none other than a penalty.
“It’s a penalty, I don’t care about anything it’s a penalty. If you watched the game live it’s a penalty. Ashfaq got the ball at the right time, he touched the ball at the right time and the goalkeeper just came and he wanted to stop him. So the contact doesn’t have to be a huge one, it doesn’t have to break Ashfaq legs, if it’s just there and he doesn’t let him go through the normal way it’s a foul. Which is called penalty”
He expressed disappointment over the reaction from the local officials of the game after the game.
“That’s ridiculous, how come someone as touching me pushing me or even just talking to me. I felt very sorry about it. I don’t know what to say I don’t know who that was”
He said that the turning point of the match could be the controversial penalty issue.
“Yeah definitely, You know the thing is mentally it can be a turning point, but if you play against India who has focused to set pieces and corners it can happen, it can make a one positioning mistake. We had a plan, we practiced and it worked. They didn’t created anything except that moment. So the good thing is that the team has courage to come back after that. So even three minutes left we had two good chances”
This is the third time that Maldives failed to win the SAFF Championship under Urbanyi.
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