Azkals, 1-2; What went wrong?

The match ended with a frustrating outcome for the Team Azkals after the Mongolian Blue Wolves nailed them to 2-1 game in Ulan Bator. Sure, the Azkals have plenty of reasons why they lost the game. Probably it was because their balls were frozen like dead meat, and their vest may have looked like French outfits, thus hampering their natural locomotion. But are these valid reasons? Hmmm...Yes, bleep No!

One thing I noticed prior to the game, the players were all excited and over confident that they would defeat the Mongols. Even the commentators and analysts were full of hopes that the team would end up triumphantly despite the weather condition. What they did not know was the fact that the Mongols had their prime in this condition.  This was very apparent in their ball handling, which was 60%-50%, over the Azkals. There’s a simple logic on this: You cannot defeat a crocodile in the water. Territory matters.  And it was in that game that the Azkal should learn their lessons if they want to survive the next match against Myanmar. In order to defeat the race of Genghis Khan, you have to employ Sun Tzu on your side. That, I guess, had they failed to realize.

Another blunder which I saw in the game, aside of course from the camera man who didn’t know how to twist his camera to follow the ball, was the fact that the team used an offensive mode. They were well informed that the Blue Wolves would play aggressively to survive their point deficits, yet still they wanted to play the game offensively , hoping that they could knock another goal which they luckily did in the first three minutes of the game courtesy of the “older” Younghusband. But still the result was formidable: We lost, not just of because territorial advantage, but also on the wrong employment of tactics. It was just fortunate that the Azkals shifted to a defensive mode in the second half, hence, stopping the Mongols to make another goal.

However, it’s a consolation to know that Team Azkals will move up to face Myanmar, Bangladesh and Palestine in the next round of elimination in the AFC. But the frustration still hang on my guts and I couldn't just shake it off. Well, oh well, isn’t it quite depressing to witness that we lost this game when we could have won it in the first place, right? Yes, we beat them by point system but game is a game and we lost it like wuzzez shivering on top of Mongolian artificial turf. Poor!


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P.S. I didn't like the referee too. It looked that he was meddling a kindergarten football match where a mere brush of a shoulder was already called foul!