AL KHOR: India’s wait for a maiden knockout round berth in the Asian Cup continued as they crashed out of the continental football showpiece after suffering a 0-1 defeat to Syria in their last group match here on Tuesday.
Substitute Omar Khribin scored the all-important goal in the 76th minute to keep Syria in contention for a round of 16 berth.
India finished at the bottom of the four-team Group B after losing all their three matches without scoring any goal.
Tuesday’s match will certainly be the swansong Asian Cup game for talisman Sunil Chhetri, who had appeared in the two earlier editions also — in 2011 and 2019.
The 39-year-old Chhetri, who is in the twilight of his illustrious career, has scored four goals — two each in 2011 and 2019 — in nine appearances to be the highest scorer from India in the continental showpiece.
India had also failed to make it to the knockout round in 1984, 2011 and 2019 editions of the tournament.
The country had finished runner-up in 1964 when the winner was decided after a round-robin league among four participating teams.
India, under Igor Stimac, will thus return home after yet another disappointing show in the continental showpiece.
The Indians had won one match — against Thailand (4-1) — in the 2019 edition, but this time, they fired a blank, returning home without any point.
The Indians had lost to Australia (0-2) and Uzbekistan (0-3) in their earlier two group matches.
The initial minutes of the match saw India going on the offensive and there were some threatening runs from Mahesh Naorem and Lallianzuala Chhangte but they did not lead to a clear chance.
But as the match wore on, the Syrians began stamping their authority and went on a rampage towards the end of the first half.
In the seventh minute, Pablo Sabbag’s header off a corner kick was saved on the goal-line by goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu.
Soon, Sandhu was called into action as he blocked a shot from Ibrahim Hesar but the rebound fell on another Syrian player Ezequiel Ham whose effort was brilliantly thwarted by Subhasish Bose.
The Indian citadel was under siege for long periods of time and the Syrians appealed for a Video Referee Assistant decision after one of their players was denied a shot inside the box.
In the added time of the first half, captain Sunil Chhetri, who had an ordinary outing in this tournament by his standards, made a long range effort but was off the target.
India got three shots in the first half as against around a dozen for the Syrians.