It was a good learning experience for us: Igor Stimac

India’s head coach Igor Stimac admitted it was a good learning experience for them after they were knocked out of the AFC Asian Cup on Tuesday. The Blue Tigers lost their last group stage match against Syria by 1-0 at the Al Bayt Stadium.

Earlier, India suffered a 2-0 loss against Australia and they were beaten 3-0 by Uzbekistan. The national team did show a lot of grit in the first half against the Socceroos and there was a lot of learning for the side.

India did fail to score against these three teams and they must have taken their lessons.

“Congratulations to the Syrian team; they deserved it in the end. They were more powerful and more relaxed in those final third moments,” Stimac said in the post-match press conference.

“(It was a) good learning experience for us, I would say, because overall, in three games, we proved that we can compete at this level. Everybody sees what the missing points are in the Indian play: scoring goals, which comes with having good goal scorers in the team – people with confidence in front of the goal,” he added.

The Croatian is hopeful that the team will be stronger in the next edition of the AFC Asian Cup.

“We can take a good lesson from here, and in the next edition of the AFC Asian Cup, we’re going to be much stronger, definitely,” Stimac opined.

The gaffer admitted they failed to score because of the absence of an experienced center forward in their team.

“The team produced enough chances to score goals, and you all know in India why we are not scoring goals at the international level. It should happen when we start having Indian players in the centre-forward position; then, we’re going to have many more goal-scorers for the national team,” he stated.

Stimac heaped praise on the duo of Rahul Bheke and Subhasish Bose despite the former getting a yellow card in the early stages of the match.

“(Rahul) Bheke and Subhasish (Bose) were quite good today, confident in everything. Although Bheke getting booked so early into the game didn’t make it easier for him, he controlled everything and every situation in a quite satisfying way,” he concluded.