Third round qualifiers

The AFC Asian Cup: The AFC Asian Cup 2019 sits dearly in the memories of the modern Indian Football fan. The Blue Tigers lost two of the three matches and failed to make it into the knockout rounds by a last-minute penalty goal conceded against Bahrain. But not everything in life and football is measured by success on paper.

It remains the only occasion when India qualified for the AFC Asian Cup after participating in the qualifiers on a home-and-away basis, a monumental campaign that began two years before the tournament itself, with the eventual top spot in Group A of the Third Round Qualifiers being sealed by India in Goa, by dint of a 2-2 draw against Myanmar in their penultimate match of the campaign.

The Blue Tigers had to contend with the likes of the Kyrgyz Republic, Myanmar, and Macau in Round 3 of the AFC Asian Cup Qualifiers and ended the successful campaign with four wins, one draw, and a solitary loss, the last of which came in the last game, a dead rubber from India’s perspective, against the Kyrgyz Republic (1-2).