SAFF Championship 2023: After a red card for India's coach, India beats arch rivals Pakistan 4-0 as Sunil Chhetri scores hattrick

The Indian men's football team defeated arch-rivals Pakistan in their opening game of the SAFF Championship 2023, putting four goals past a hapless rival defence at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

 

 

 

Indian skipper Sunil Chhetri led from the front, scoring a hat-trick (10', 16' and 73') followed by Udanta Singh Kumam's goal in the 81st minute. With this win, India has maintained the seventh straight clean sheet against their traditional rivals.

 

India positioned themselves at the top of the points table in Group A, having a better goal difference than Kuwait, who, earlier on Wednesday defeated Nepal 3-1 in the tournament opener.

 

 

Indian coach Igor Stimac was shown the red card late in the first half for knocking the ball from the hands of a Pakistan player who was trying to make a quick throw-in after a disputed decision during a Group A SAFF Championship match being held at the Sree Kanteerava stadium in Bengaluru.

 

India were leading by two goals at this point. The incident took place minutes before the referee was set to blow the whistle for the first half to end.

 

After defenders Pritam Kotal and Abdullah Iqbal were contesting for a ball, there was momentary confusion over who should take the throw-in. But Iqbal took the ball and attempted to release it immediately to continue play. Stimac, presumably trying to stop the quick throw-in by the Pakistani player, tried to knock the ball out of Iqbal’s hand, causing Pakistani players to surround him while making their protest known to the referee. The touchline situation escalated into Indian and Pakistani players surrounding each other.

 

Sunil Chhetri tried to be a voice of reason amidst both teams surrounding each other, and was finally able to separate the warring sides. But the referee took his red card out for Stimac and also handed yellows to the Pakistan head coach Shehzad Anwar and Rahis Nabi, as well as Indian defender Sandesh Jhinghan