07 October 2002

After a long three-month training camp we set off for the Asian Games in South Korea having set ourselves the target of six points.

I thought that this seemed entirely possible if we got a little bit of luck.

Confidence was high following recent results and there was now a visible belief in the side that we could go out and win games.

Our opponents though, I am sure, will have had other ideas!

We arrived in Seoul on 23 September after another all-night journey. We then had to change to a domestic flight to catch a plane down to the south in Busan. From Busan we had an hour-long trip overland to the village where all of the teams were staying.

You can imagine just how tired we were after a 24 journey. So to have to wait about two hours for accreditation cards to be issued felt like the final straw.

On the plus side, we were given a couple of extra days to acclimatise ourselves to conditions in Korea.

Our first challenge on the pitch came in the form of neighbours Bangladesh. India-Bangladesh clashes are always made more interesting by a long history of local rivalry.

We scored twice early in the second half to clinch a victory and leave us second in the group behind China, who had beaten Turkmenistan 4-0.

It was great to kick off with a win, but we were also left feeling that we could have scored a few more and that we might be made to pay the price for this later on.

Next up were Turkmenistan - a strong side with many players plying their trade in the Russian and Ukrainian leagues. When they took the lead after some terrible defending it wasn’t surprising that a lot of people in the crowd thought India were finished.

I am glad to say though that, after a half-time talk, the boys upped their game. There were no teacups hurled, but I certainly didn’t mince my words.

To their credit, our team came out like stormtroopers in the second half, scoring twice in the first 10 minutes, and from there we never looked back. We added a third to finish worthy 3-1 winners.

Meanwhile, China were handing out a 3-0 beating to Bangladesh.

Two wins in our first two games meant that we had already achieved our initial target of six points as we went in to the top-of-the-table clash with China.

A draw would take both teams through to the next stage. The format of the competition meant that the two best runner-ups would go through from Groups B,C (our group) and D.

In the other two groups, UAE needed to beat Thailand to go through and Bahrain would need to win and hope we lost to stand any chance. It was going to go down to the wire.

And what a game it turned out to be against China! A dubious penalty in the 15th minute put them ahead – and that after we had really been turning on the style. We then had a couple of big chances but conceded a very late second in first-half injury time.

We really applied the pressure in the second half but the Chinese held the ball well and we weren't able to break them down. Bahrain went into their game two days later knowing exactly what they needed to do and after 15 minutes were 3-0 up! They ended up winning their match 5-0.

Although we were out, we left the Asian Village having achieved something that we hadn’t managed in the previous four Asian Games - two wins! We ended up second in the group on six points, with a +3 goal difference and went out on goal difference to both of the other two runners-up that qualified. Hardly, then, a failure.

And we will get better, there is no doubt about that.

Our next tournament is the SAFF Cup in January, in Bangladesh and we are already putting our plans in place for that tournament.

Take care and thanks for visiting the site.

Stephen