Maldives 2 - 0 India: Champions through

This Indian team is not even the best u-23 team Players like robin singh, Branco, lal kumar bhowmick(scored against bayer munich and milan reserve side) and vashum are not in the team so also Subash Singh is not playing along with baldeep singh. Maldives could not even dominate much against our reserve players of our reserve team. Silly misses by India cost us the game

hey so called king of asian."that tiny drop" came on da pitch and defeated u.its 2-0. so plx think before you comment guys.maldives is better than india.thank god.insha allah we will win this time even.god luck our beloved national football team.comon guys go beat sri lanka.

Lesson learned Indians? see the result of today's match. 2x down in array and your nightmare haunt you the next time you'll face Maldevians!!! LOL ;-))

well done crushing India and getting through to semi-finals is nice..........keep the good play............

Too easy!

@DEEPAK: LOL! We know that you guys always have excuses.. lol...better luck next time... or not :P

Congrats Maldives!!! This is a win against Indian team...this is NOT a U-23 team...they have 7 older players in the starting lines up. So all Indians making excuses, i have to tell you you wont go to the world cup in next 50 years..nor will we. so shut up and try to improve rather than make excuses... Sorry for Nepal...they deserved to go through...They are a very good side but sadly i cant say the same about thapa, their coach...I think their coach is very discouraging and should be investigated by AFC. Srilanka will be harder to beat than Bangladesh...but atleast the refreeing will be fair against Srilanka... All the best to India, Maldives, Bangladesh and Srilanka...May the best team win!!!

anil bai, we already defeated that first team of your last year.

Well done Maldives! We pakistanis are all with you. Hope u win the cup inshallah. My prayers & wishes are with you. Long Live Pakistan! Long Live Maldives!

HEY GUYS THE BATTLE ISN'T OVER YET......WE HAVE JUST LOST THE WAR....

In your face indian commenters! go maldives

we want revenge against bangladesh. Hope bangladesh will beat india in semi's and get beaten by us in Finals. :)

omg the ash thinks its a battle. there was none. ul lose to bangladesh in the semi. after all that hot talk u guys cudnt beat us. LMAO u cudnt even truble our goal. its a pity we cudnt score more goals. we cudve scored 5 o 6. nd mr deepak we kno all indians wanted to make this excuse so they didnt send the senior team. but we dont realy care. all we want is the trophy. stil u guys arent ready to accept defeat. that team can com and play with our under 13 side. may b then they cud atleast scrape a draw.

well....indian team played a poor football..i watched the match frm ESPN they were sayin tht india is a loser...maldives got many chances if they used them maldives will be able to score 5 goals

hey guys india want show a excusses indian english coach MR>BOB...,you dont have any information for SAFF foot ball. dont thing india is Brazil. last year we beat your team, that why you are afried to come to this tounment.

Congra to Maldivian Heroes.Maldivian Boys have shown they are the champions and they deserve it.Indian Are playing 1980's soccer.we really hate it.We are playing the sexy short pass football.Indian Press is trying to high light the strength of their team as they are Under 23.what i wanna high light in here is We defeat what they called their senior team in last year final. our game plan,our players skills and finishing are much better than Indian team.Actually Indian dont deserve a semi final spot.Nepal play much better soccer than India. best of luck to our loving national team.we are confident with the coach n players.your performance in today's game was superb.-ahufam

oh man! ashfaq has picked up a needless yellow card to stay out of the semi final. thats a big big blow!! :(

@ammadey: ashfaq can play in semi's, its the redcard which counts. all the previous yellows won't count in semis. Im sure that without ashfaq also we can win this trophy no doubt :)

hey ash,india please learn proper english its "may have lost the battle, but not the war" you got it the other way round no wonder you indians loose

First things first yes Maldivies played much better and won the game second thing this web-site has mis-quoted shuki he said that two/ three player had been part of the national side thats true. But they are the bench strenth team. This is not an excuse but the truth. Every team even the Indianu-23 team though a reserve side has come to win and they will try their best. Man to man yes except couple of player maldives has a better side to the u-23 team

hey ammaday, Those cards shown in the group stage wont be counting anymore in the knock out matches.

congra all. pls pray for all maldivians. we want do samthing againg 2008.

alhamdhu lihlah.... insha allah we will win the next two games

@ Ammadey Accordin to MS, they dont count yellow cards from group games to semis....so ASHFAQ IS PLAYING!!!semis!!

india has to learn modern football from us. hiting the ball from diffence line as fast as they can and try to find ball in oponents panalty area is football of 1960s. india tag the team as u23 as they have no confidents. one who gets fear so easy can not play football

Indians! dnt think that you guys r brasil or spain to beat maldivians by ur so called U23 team. Learn a lesson! Dnt think ur football level is as high as europeans. u guys are as same level as other saff teams. plx dnt use "Under 23" as an excuse. Who told u not send ur senior team? And even ur team players are not under 23.

Oh. Maldives thrash india he he he. Live on ESPN and world wide chennel shows the big indian team lost against tiny maldives. Shame on india. Lol they r lucky to got chance in semi. Only 2 goals scord in group stage. Wot nice play frm india. Always kicking the ball for 6. No passing. Trying to play wth playerz nt wth a ball. Pis pis wot a nice game indian palyed. Still indians are lucky to win against Nepal. That goal was own goal even. India lost 2nd time against maldives in a raw. Shame on u.

..guys just come to down to earth..in few years time Maldives will be far far behind India..cos they have all the necessary resources (Human, Financial..etc) n they are investing it wisely..their league is improving year by year...Where are we.. our football is in a downward .. our league is getting weaker n weaker..check last two, three years attendance.. it is at all time low (even this year it is worse)..Our teams performance in AFC cup??..if u agree or not the result of our football today is bcos of just a few peoples unappreciated hard work..n we (the fans) are proud of that????...we r in very serious position ...I urge all the stakeholders come together and attend this problem before it is too late...otherwise we will be like Malaysia....u know few years back they were at the same level as JAPAN etc, where are they now....

The gigantic country of INDIA could not beat the tiny drop of MALDIVES. Shame on India. Now India should admit they no longer reign in Asia. Maldives are far better than India now...MALDIVES, DEFEND THE CUP.

Agree wih @truepicture. The future does not look too good and there is nothing much we can do about it. It all comes down to money. FIFA, AFC, European teams wants to establish soccer in India cause it is the fastest growing economy. It means more revenue would be generted. We have got talent but we have little other than that to offer, No top european team is going to establish football academy here. Fifa and AFC will always favour India.They might throw a born at us but will not invest too much here. We have to accept these facts. We need our players playing outside the country and make use of the facilities available in India to develop our youth. Lot need to be done to improve our local lague.

LOL !!!!Inda beaten by Maldives!!u gus have like 1,198,003,000 people living in ur country and have all the space to build foot ball grounds and practice like hell and u guys are richer and still not able to produce good players...while we are have only around 300,000 people and limited space and money to spend on players and atill produce good players ................

alhamdhu lillihi. congrats to our Maldivian national team. we ar very happy whether we ar far from. if we ar in malaysia also, our support is with you national team. hope you going to win the semi final & go to final. insha allah. we will win. insha allah.

"Alhugandu miadhu enme ufaa vany ashfag goal jeheema" Comment by the azmeen after the afganistan match. So y not play ashfag only. From what i have seen oppo,baka,asad ali,thoriq,muhkthaar have played better than him. he is losing the ball too much. The team wont play better if they depended on ashfag too much. Hope sri lanka beat maldives so that our maldivian government and supportors wont spend so much of their money (waste of money) on the team, giving them unnecessary rewards.

Well said True Picture!!! A very worrying predicament, the result is seen on the pitch where 6 passes cannot be strung together, ball control is almost zero, ageing defence line, no-one to orchestrate the midfield, take out ashfag and we will be a very mediocre team. And ashfag's performance has gone down drastically. He has got two yellow cards by practically begging for it, always after the referee, very childish and not fit for the captainship!

@truepicture, wisely phrased..i liked n agree it very much..v maldivianz really need gud strategies t impruve our futball inorder to gain a stable position in da international ranking..

OK OK indians. its a weak under23 side u have fielded this year. i guess last year it was ur under 12 side right? baichun butiya would be a teenager this year..GO GO YINDIANS..

a few hundredthousand smiles a BILLION was totally shocked after defeat against the tiny maldives again. for india beating maldives means totally history those days are gone

Congratulations Maldives! you guys did great. You are proving that you are the force in South Asia. Keep up the good work. You will prevail. Waiting eagerly for you guys to come home with the cup.

Hey cruel Maldivians..............what future do you have in football........ok u beat an Indian U-23 team and after that what really can you achieve.......how long will be only playing SAFF cup........your Federation doesn't even think about future,they did not send your youth teams for qualifiers........our federation is gonna revamp our league just like the IPL(cricket),so there will lot of money involved and football will develop drastically.........Our Olympic body has also decided to bid for FIFA WC..............So if you look our Federation is targeting future and your Federation is only preparing bunch of Grandpas

Agree with @True picture and @udhuheymufeed. We have a good team at the moment but we will not perform at this level for too long unless more players like Ashfaq come to the scene. Since India is now taking football seriously, I think it would be a good idea to send our players (youngsters) to play in their league. And if a good professional league develops there its really good for this region. Our players can benefit well from it. Since I am sure they will look for assistance from our skillful players. And this way we can still retain a good position in football. Little brazil can do the same as its big brother in south america does. Its not the English, Italian or Spanish that has most world cups, but Brazil.

Kalo!!! mee aabaadhi akkun vaakameh noon ingey r****. Maldives is obviously better in football than any other team there. So pls respect us. we are the Present champions. U indians bow ur head to us!!!! Maldives may be small but in soccer we are the 'KING', so pls find ur own path, like cricket. 1 bln VS 300k = 2-0. Thats your developmnt INDIA! GO FISH!!!

Maldives = love Soccer Rank #146 India= love cricket Rank #1 :P India Little Love = Rank # 135

India plx dnt take U23 as an excuse.....If ur the giant in this region u must beat any team in this region even if it is U18...LOL....India is getting selfish hoping tht they can beat Maldives easily....U cant beat us without Sunil Chatri, Butia, Pradeep...India wud b beaten by Bangladesh in semi final....so c u next time India..

its sad to see maldivianz are so arrogant......anyways maldivian team lacks motivation... btw we our football is going down.... politics has killed our football plus the format of football calender....we have no future..we cant compete agaisnt india......i can see bright future for indian football....

when we started competing in this region we was thrashed by bangladesh india and srilanka in the 80s bangladesh beat us 8-0 in saff games 1985 srilanka beat us 5-0 in a friendly in 1984 india crushed us in 1997 saff championship final 5-1 but now all these are history in regional football we are far better than these teams thats why i mentioned A FEW HUNDRED THOUSAND SMILES A BILLION WAS SHOCKED EVEN IN LAST YEARS FINAL a little bitter but believe in the truth and try to live with it when maldives beat india twice in a row."JO JEETA WOHI SIKANDHAR"

AJAY SING I KNOW WHEN THIS HAPPENS "KUCH KUCH HOTA HAI" DONT WORRY YOU WERE BEATEN BY REGIONAL CHAMPIONS MALDIVES IS THE NATION "JISE LOG SHAHENSHAH KEHETEIN HAI"

Hahahahaha................Maldives can only win SAFF cup other than that they can't do anything...........look at their youth teams and see their league,how crap it is..........Maldives have no Future...........AND MALDIVES PEOPLE DON'T KNOW HOW TALK AND RESPECT OTHERS,THAT'S WHY GOD IS SINKING THEM.............Abey Jungli Bulliya phle apne future ke bare me soncho

GANJA MANIKUFAAN if u want to share a comment write in english or dhivehi. this is maldives soccer not indian soccer OK

I haven't seen Indian fans bashing like this before...LOL i thought they never cared about football.....it a good thing ... keep up Indian fans ...

hey who says india is the best in cricket? dont you see how india was embarassingly knocked out of the first round in the ICC Champions trophy, and also thrashed 4-2 by Australia in the ODI Series in your home backyard?? LOL... You think u are the best in everything, but are certainly not... in football, u keep losing to this tiny maldives both with ur senior and under-23 teams.. shame on u.

Alhamdhulillaah!!! Congratulations to the team n management of the Maldivian National Team....and also to all the fans... Keep up the good work... G'luck for the semis... We are with you!!!

Maldives actually does have a future in football.. we just need experience.. and a federation that realise that the younger players need attention.. the current teenage players are quite good.. and there can be many ashfaq's in the future.. BUT, practising just on their own won't help much.. atleast i don't think so..

Maldives should think beyond SAFf if they r to be a true champion like India did for ASIA CUP 11. Beating undr 23 indian team in a last league game with 5-6 main players rested for semis even the keeper gt rstd, doest make maldives a socer giant in the region. If maldives have to prove, qualify urself first for asiad n meet us (ind) wit our ful strength there at asiad

ehem.. @devlin: i thought v already beat your "full team" last year in the saff finals.. :P we don't take a GAINT LEAP to ATTEMPT and ACT like the best.. we will go step by step.. Thanx :P Plus, india is NOT the best in cricket.. it was proved when they were beaten by australia.. :P @maldivianfart: v can't do anything eh? oh well.. let's just see.. Look at our youth teams.. y don't you come and watch the football games of the two major boys secondary skools ... .. 14 - 16 yr old kids play almost as good as the average players of the current teams