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Final Today

Maldives start favourites

Sports Reporter
Defending champions Maldives will be hoping for a repeat of their feat in the last edition when they take on India in the final of the Bangabandhu Sixth SAFF Championship at the Bangabandhu National Stadium today.
Maldives lifted their first-ever regional title in the last edition after a last-gasp goal from Naseer Mukhthar helped them beat India 1 -0 in Colombo.
Maldives are once again considered the favourites in the battle for supremacy in the South Asian region and the islanders are kept ahead not only because they are going to face a youthful Indian side that they have already beaten 2-0 in the group stage.
Maldives are firm favourites as the islanders have progressed to the final with a commendable performance thumping Sri Lanka 5-1 in the semifinal despite having started slowly in their first match against Nepal, who held them to 1 -1 draw.
Maldives captain Ashfaq Ali is the
nucleus of the islanders' attack with Ahmed Thoriq and Fazeel Ibrahim almost getting the back of their opponents' nets in every match and Maldives having already struck 11 goals in four matches they have played so far, but Maldives' Hungarian coach Urbanvi Istvan Bela, however, doesn't like to think them as favourites in the final.
"We played one game against them in the group stage and that was interesting, but it is not going to be the same game and it's going to be a tough match as both teams will want to win the game," Istavan said.
"India is an organised team and I had earlier said that the two teams are completely different and there is no reason to talk about their age which does not have any impact on the game."
"We will try to control the game from
the beginning and expect our strikers to avail the chances that they get and I hope everybody will enjoy the game like the match against Sri Lanka," said Bela.
Maldives, however, will miss their key player Fazeel Ibrahim, who struck twice against Sri Lanka, due to injury and it was a big blow for Bela.
"I don't think Fazeel will play. You saw him playing on the left; how many chances he (Fazeel) created in the previous matches and we will definitely miss him, but I believe we have enough individuals to create chances and hopefully the boys will avail those chances in tomorrow's match."
Nevertheless, Maldives will have to face a stiff challenge from the Indian backline, which allowed their goalkeeper to concede only two goals in four matches and the Maldives coach believes everyone have their own strategy on how to break the opponents backline.
Indian coach Sukhvinder Singh also echoed the same sentiment of his counterpart saying: "Our previous defeat to Maldives in the group match, even a
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victory against Bangladesh will not help any more. It will be a different match, a special day and you have to think differently and do better to get the result"
After having confirmed their semifinal berth, India rested five regular players in their last group match against Maldives and went down 2-0 to finish group runners-up.
"We did not field our full strength in the match against Maldives where we went down 2-0 and it will not happen again," Sukhvindersaid.
"After coming here we are improving match by match though the boys were not up to the mark in the first two matches, but they came close to their level in the semifinal and hope they will put another
good show in the final."
India have struck three goals in four matches while Maldives found the back of net 11 times and whether it would matter in deciding the final match remains to be seen.
"The more important thing is to create chances and avail them. We created chances and struck three games in the matches we won and at the same time we did not concede any goal so it does not matter how many goals you score," said the Indian coach.
"It is not a hundred metre sprint to run one to one rather it is a team game and each player can stop anyone," said Sukhvinder when asked how to stop in-form Maldives strikers Ashfaq Ali and Ahmed Thoriq, the top-scorer of the tournament.