The National team’s fifth match of the Portugal training tour ended in a goalless draw
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The men in blue were held to a frustrating goalless draw against the Portuguese side. This was the fifth practice match for the Indians who are in Lisbon for a training camp prior to the Asian Cup in January.
The Indian team treaded carefully at the start and were impressive in the first half with the midfield combining well with the strikers. The best chance of the half came for India as a Pradeep header from a corner kick by Renedy Singh was saved off the line by the Casa Pia defender. Sunil Chettri’s return did boost the team, but even the Kansas City forward’s attempts were ineffective. They failed to break the deadlock and the score at the end of the first half was still 0-0.
After the break, Bob Houghton’s men were given a tough fight by their opponents and failed to make an impact as they did before the breather. Even the Portuguese side’s feisty efforts were not enough to change the scorelineand the match ended in a goalless draw.
India will now play Real Massama SC on Thursday at the Massama Ground. The match begins at 1735 GMT (2305 IST).
India 0 – 0 Casa Pia AC
Team sheet:
Starting XI: Subrata Paul, Surkumar Singh, Gouramangi Singh, Anwar, Rahim Nabi, Anthony Pereira, Renedy Singh, N.P. Pradeep, Clifford Miranda, Abhishek Yadav and Sunil Chettri.
Substitues: N.S. Manju, Mahesh Gawli, Baldeep Singh and RakeshMaish.