India vs Kuwait Football Match: Highlights of SAFF Championship

“Winning Titles and making records are the keys to make a nation proud and creating history to encourage many more”

India Vs Kuwait Football Match: In the SAFF Championship Title 2023, India made its mark through ninth time winning and made more records in the tournament to clinch the title. Indian has beaten Kuwait in the finals to clinch the SAFF Championship title 2023 for the ninth time in Bengaluru. 

Straight away to the final, the Indian football team has beaten Lebanon in the semi-finals after sharing stage wins over Pakistan and Nepal while pulling out against Kuwait.

South Asian Football Federation Championship 2023 final match between India and Kuwait, is taking place at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium, Bengluru. 

Sunil Chhetri made a record of the highest goalscorer at the SAFF Championship with 23 goals. Sunil Chhetri has been facilitated for highest goal scorer with BOOT Trophy and a Golden Ball Accolade. He shared the honour with Football Legend of Maldives Ali Ashfaq.

Highlights of The India Vs Kuwait Football Match

India, ranked 100th in the latest FIFA rankings, faced Kuwait football team, ranked 141st, in the SAFF Championship 2023. Igor Stimac drew out a 1-1 draw against Kuwait in the tournament.

In the other matches, India defeated Pakistan by 4-0 in the opening before beating up Nepal by 2-0 to reach Group A. The Gulf nation, Lebanon, was invited to this regional tournament for the very first time.

India can count on Football Captain Sunil Chhetri to deliver his best in the final. The 38-year-old played well in netting five goals in four matches, including a hat-trick against Pakistan.

Due to suspension Defender Sandesh Jinghan, had missed the finals for having clashes in semi-final with Lebanon, will soon return to the team to buttress India ahead after the SAFF final. 

The group match between the teams last week ended in a 1-1 draw, which was a more outrageous situation on the pitch than the quality play of the day. The speculation was already made that India would win the finals.

Gurpreet Singh Sandhu made a brilliant move to save an uncertain goal. Both of the teams had effortlessly ample chances to clinch the SAFF title 2023 in the extra time but none of them could score the decisive goal and thrived into a penalty shootout, where India declared its ninth thrilling win.

Genesis of the South Asian Football Federation:

An international football federation, South Asian Football Federation which organizes tournaments for the contested teams from the South Asian Subcontinent. South Asian Football Federation comes under the umbrella of the Asian Football Confederation(AFC) among the five sub-confederations.

South Asian Football federation was founded in 1997 and its founder members are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Maldives. In 2000, Bhutan united with SAFF and made an increase in member nations. In 2005, Afghanistan became the eighth member of SAFF later moved to CAFA (Central Asian football Association) in 2015.

The first edition of the football Championship for the South Asian countries was already held in 1993 before the establishment of the federation.

In the beginning, when it started in 1993, SAFF tournament was known as South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Gold Cup. Later it was changed to South Asian Gold Cup in 1995 and made several changes in title from 1997 to 2005 and finally renamed in 2008 since then it is known as SAFF Championship. 

At the very beginning, India won its first accolade in the first edition in Lahore, Pakistan and Sri Lanka was the runners-up. The format of the tournament was played in a single round-robin league without any knockout games.

The first edition of the tournament had no knockouts. I M Vijayan Football legend scored three of four goals and became the top goalscorer in the tournament.