India U-18 beats Maldives to reaches SAFF final

The Indian football team hammered Maldives 4-0 to storm into the final of of the SAFF U-18 Championship here on Friday.

Narender Gahlot (7th), Manvir Singh (79th) and Ninthoinganba Meetei (81st) found the target for India while Maldives’ Ahnaf Rasheedh (45+1) scored an own goal on the stroke of half time to make it an emphatic victory for India.

India now plays Bangladesh in the summit clash on Sunday.

India looked to attack from the start and reaped the reward early on, when centre-back Narender headed the ball past the keeper into the net.

Around the half-hour mark, Ninthoi worked a short corner and crossed it in, but Jeakson Singh’s shot on the volley whistled inches wide.

Maldives started to create a few chances towards the end of the first half, when Ahmed Husaam made his way into the Indian box and earned a corner. The Islanders also worked a short corner, as captain Hassan Nazeem got past a defender, entered the box, and seemingly went down under some pressure. However, the referee was having none of it and waved play on.

Maldives had an opportunity to pull one goal back with less than 20 minutes remaining on the clock.,However, the Indian defence averted the danger.

Second-half substitute Manvir made it 3-0 with a little over 10 minutes to go in the match.

Soon after, it was right-winger Ninthoi, who beautifully sent a volley from outside the Maldives area into the back of the net, making it 4-0 for India.