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Regular-article-logo Friday, 17 October 2025

MAKING SEMIS WAS TOP PRIORITY, SAYS SUKHWINDER 

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FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT Published 26.04.99, 12:00 AM
Margao, April 26 :     Indian coach Sukhwinder Singh did not seem too perturbed by his team?s average show in their SAFF Coca-Cola Cup win over Pakistan in entering the last four stage. Though he had earlier expressed his desire to top the group and avoid a tiring afternoon match, today he said: ?It?s important that we are through. That was the top priority.? About the 2-0 margin ? where it should have been 5-0 at least ? he made the usual noises about misses and misspasses and said that now that India are through, all that becomes irrelevant. Not exactly the right frame of mind for a national coach to be in an international tourney. Asked why he kept on with I.M. Vijayan for so long when he was clearly not being able to deliver, he said: ?Vijayan is the second established striker of the side, and a bad patch is a bad patch. Not much should be read into this.? That was also his stock answer on the 62nd -minute Carlton Chapman introduction for Bruno Coutinho. He also tried to justify his changes by saying that he was getting the players required practice before the semis. Pakistan coach Muhammed Idrees said he was ?not unhappy? with his team?s performance. ?I quite expected it, and India did miss a lot of chances too,? he said. ?I got to handle the team as a unit for a short time before we came here, and I believe we delivered as per our potential.    
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