By Debayan Mukherjee,
AIFF Media Team

MANAMA:  Over 180 minutes of football and India outplayed their opponents. Bahrain had no answer. The better team won.

“India were better than us. Hence, they won. Simple!” confessed Bahrain Women’s Team Head Coach Maher Abdullah. “They played some really good football. India were a more skillful team,” he added.

“Our backline fumbled and we could not convert the chances we got. It is good that we played a good team like India before the AFC Cup Qualifiers.  We have learnt a lot. We will now work on our weaknesses and prepare for our AFC Qualifiers,” Abdullah maintained.

All of that came after Indian Women won both their International Friendlies against Bahrain.

A beaming Indian Women’s Team Coach Anadi Barua opined: “Nothing came easy for us. Both the games were evenly contested and we had to earn our victories. We are improving and learning from our mistakes. This is a good sign.”

Goalkeeping Coach Chitra Gangadharan cited an example to point out the marked improvement of the Team with every game over the last one month.

“We played with the Pune FC U-17 boys and U-19 boys during our Camp in Pune. We lost both the games but we also scored three goals against them. The girls have showed great character,” she said.

“The four goals scored over two matches were absolute gems. While Sasmita’s (Malik) crosses stayed the highlight of the first match, Prameshwori (Devi) and Kamala’s (Devi) strikes were World Class.”

Barua who has always been a staunch believer in goals, stressed: “In Football, you need to score goals. We capitalised on the opportunities we got,” he reflected. “These victories are morale boosting ones.”

“But the real test lies ahead,” prophesed Assistant Coach Surmala Chanu. “The AFC Cup Qualifiers will be a different ball game altogether. Our Group has some very good teams who will be tough to beat. We have to put our best foot forward and not relax for even one moment.”

India play Myanmar in the first match of Group D in the AFC Women’s Asian Cup Qualifiers next Tuesday (May 21, 2013).