It took three corner-kicks in the first 15 minutes for India’s World Cup dreams to curdle.
USA scored from two of those set-piece situations and India unspooled. It will be an exercise in damage limitation hereafter. There will be sterner tests for USA but coach Natalia Astrain’s assertion about wanting to make history looks to be on course.
They were bigger in size – Charlotte Kohler outjumped left-side central defender Purnima Kumari for the second goal and Ella Emri doing that for the sixth, both from corner-kicks–and better technically and tactically. Which meant they could circulate the ball better.
To the top brass of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), union ministers, Odisha chief minister Naveen Patnaik and FIFA secretary-general Fatma Samoura, USA showed that you can’t paper over all that with an intense eight-month training camp.
You can’t compensate for the lack of a football culture, for youth competitions being stalled with Covid-19 cited as reason by nearly 270 training sessions. If you could, you would break the pole vault world record using a bamboo shaft.
“For very long we have defended corners really well but then we hadn’t played a team of this level. USA should go really far in this tournament,” said India head coach Thomas Dennerby for whom the 8-0 loss was the worst in a long and storied career.
“But we can do better and I hope we can show that in the next two games. I think the girls were nervous; we didn’t even try to pass the ball to each other. When we did it was a weak pass and from that it was 3-0.”
This USA team is used to winning big. They beat Granada 20-0 with 10 players scoring; Puerto Rico 13-0, Costa Rica 5-0 and Curacao 11-0 on way to winning this year’s CONCACAF championship that got them a ticket to India. Melina Remimbas was among the scorers in that competition having netted in all four knockout games.
On Tuesday, she opened the scoring following a corner-kick with a volley after being unmarked in the six-yard box. Ninth minute and the USA were leading and nothing that India head coach Thomas Dennerby had hoped–a good start, USA being nervy after a sudden display of fireworks and the home crowd worked up by the deejay into making a lot of noise–happened.
After a second minute effort when Nitu Linda found Kajol D’Souza but India’s lone forward couldn’t sort out her legs in a one-on-one situation, the home team was pushed into desperate defending. The low block in a 4-1-4-1 formation may have been part of the plan but so were using the speed of Neha and Anita Kumari by playing the ball behind the defence.
In football what happens on one side of the pitch usually has a bearing on the other and because India could not move forward, they were swarmed by white shirts. Inability to clear their lines led to player-of-the-match Onyeka Paloma Gamero making it 3-0. Remimbas’ left-foot volley from range made it 4-0 following which Gisele Thomson scored with a solo effort after cutting in from the right.
By then, Astrain had taken to clapping politely after a goal and, often stood alone in the technical area, Dennerby had taken his seat on the bench. The miserable night was completed by a penalty conceded for a foul by Kajal; Taylor Suarez converting. Mia Bhuta completed the tally with a fine volley, ensuring that the night wouldn’t end without a player of Indian parentage on the scoresheet.
“It’s in the DNA of US women soccer players to not get carried away,” said Astrain. “If you come to the recovery session tomorrow, you will see the girls not wanting to stop.” For Dennerby it will be about “telling the team that the sun will come out tomorrow and a sleepless night tonight won’t help you perform better.”