We are the only guilty party for the end result, concedes Igor Stimac

The Croatian tactician admitted that his team made many mistakes that cost them two points.

An underwhelming display from India saw them held to a 1-1 draw against 10-man Bangladesh at SAFF Championship 2021 on Monday. While Sunil Chhetri's goal in the first half gave Igor Stimac and Co. plenty of hope, their neighbours killed all the joy by means of a 74th-minute equaliser from Yeasin Arafat.

Bangladesh now have four points from two games. They are at the top of the table, while India are in third place with one point. Prior to the match, Stimac had said the first game is the most important fixture for India in the competition. But it turns out that they could not make the most of their opportunity against the Bengal Tigers.

The Croatian tactician spoke after the clash as well, in the post-match press conference. He began with a congratulatory message for both teams, as he believed that they played a really good game.

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"I would like to congratulate both teams because this was the best game of football among these last three games (between India and Bangladesh). We are the only guilty party for the end result. We had everything in control, took a one-goal lead and had one player more than the opponents - and then, for some unknown reasons, we started giving away the ball and making unnecessary mistakes," he began.

"And that (the equaliser) is what happens when you boost the confidence of your opponents. When you give them chances, they'll take it."

On reasons for draw

Igor Stimac admitted that India made many mistakes today and stated that those were the main reasons why they could not come away with the win. "We were punished today, for not being reasonable in certain situations. We did not use our experience. I expected much more from the team in that sense. We gave the ball away too many times. There was an unnecessary nervousness among players which is difficult to explain. When you don't feel much pressure, why would you give the ball away? I don't understand that and we need to work on it," he explained.

The Croatian further added, "But, anyway, it was a great game. Congratulations to the Bangladesh football team, they came back and it is what it is. We need to look forward now - can't spend a lot of time analysing this match because we have more games ahead."

On road ahead

The 54-year-old refused to accept that the Bangla Tigers had an advantage because they had already played one game, unlike his own team, who just got their SAFF Championship campaign underway.

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"We have a total of four games, like everyone else. We need to get as many points as possible and then you'll see. There are three more games which we need to play well. I want to say that our boys played well for about 75 minutes. They played progressive football, made reasonable passes, arrived at dangerous positions on the pitch and so on.

"However, in the remaining 15 minutes, we were not organised, gave the ball away too many times and made many mistakes. We need to work on that and then we'll be okay," he said. "We gave Bangladesh simple chances to counter-attack and that helped them score. It was us, who made the mistakes. I could even say that we could've passed the ball among the back four all day and nobody would have attacked us."

He further added, "For me, as a coach, it was hard to see the team failing to break the opposition's lines and make good passes. Of course, it's difficult to expect 100% passing accuracy at this level, but as a coach, I also need to expect better passing than this. We made too many mistakes in such a short time."

Referee's decisions

A few days after describing Bangladesh's penalty against Sri Lanka as a 'funny decision', Igor Stimac once again questioned some of the referee's decisions on Monday.

"(Apart from the red card) there was also a penalty in the first half - there was a handball after the cross if you noticed. The referee didn't give it. There were some strange decisions today, favourable to someone," he said.

On Bangladesh's performance

The Croatian commented that it's not possible to win every game, when asked about the result. "Bangladesh competed closely with us at the Salt Lake Stadium (in 2019). They created almost equal number of chances as us back then, but in Doha (in June 2021), we were the better side. They didn't even have a shot on target and we could have finished that game with a score of 6-0 or 7-0.

"Today again, we had opportunities to close out the match before full-time. You can say that we are supposed to win games like this, but this is football, you cannot win every game," Igor Stimac explained, before adding, "But, we needed to kill the game when the right opportunities came up. 1-0 was not enough.

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"Regarding the opponents, they played safe with a defending 4-1-4-1 formation. They stayed in compact blocks, opened the sides and defended for their lives. When they got the goal, they tried more counter-attacks. Hence, nothing changed in their game style, but don't get me wrong - I need to watch the match again and only then I can give you a more detailed opinion," he said, when asked about Oscar Bruzon's game plan.

Igor Stimac concluded the interaction with a few words on the Bangla Tigers' supporters. "They had good support from the stands. You could see that their fans were passionate. They were pushing the team to work more and more throughout the match," he said.

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