It was, for 43 minutes, surreal.
Indian football would give anything to frame everything about those minutes at the Fatorda: a screamer from range, chances aplenty, a collective press that was unlivable with, passing and a movement of the like we've not seen any time in the recent past. It was magical realism, really, and it was beautiful to behold.
The thing with magical realism, though, is that in life, the realism does the heavy hitting all too often. On Tuesday at a sparsely crowded Fatorda stadium in Madgaon, that hitting came via Song Ui-young as Singapore came from behind to beat India 2-1 and knock the hosts out of contention for Asian Cup qualifying.
The magic, first: Lallianzuala Chhangte's absolute howitzer of a hit came in the middle of a period of supreme Indian dominance where the Indian back four was perched on the halfway line, Nikhil Prabhu was smashing into tackle after tackle, Mahesh Singh was dovetailing perfectly with a deep-dropping Sunil Chhetri, Apuia was doing whatever Apuia wanted to do (a three-dummies-in-one move and a trivela crossfield stood out, in the sense an Indian midfielder can do all that?) and there were chances being created en-masse from open play. Khalid Jamil had promised India would be on "attacking mode from the start" and weren't they just. There were stepovers and quick one-twos and one-touch passing and inch-perfect diagonals... and then there was the pressing.
Singapore tried to play their way through it initially, because that is the Gavin Lee way, but inside ten minutes they were simply unable to make a choice of their own, so harried and rushed were they the moment they got the ball. Chhangte's goal came from that press, a misplaced pass under duress.
Singapore scored with the first chance they created, a lucky bounce off a half-clearance from Bheke landing at the feet of Glenn Kweh who resisted the urge to hit at first sight and teed up Song for a calm side foot from 12 yards out. Song's movement had been superb, understanding that the Indian midfield was more aggressively positioned than normal and dropping in behind them to pick out a pocket of space. Post-match, he suggested just that -- as hard as the Indian press was initially, their intensity had dropped after the first half-hour, and he'd begun to understand where the spaces were.
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- Indian Football (@IndianFootball) October 14, 2025
Singapore started the second on the front foot, subbing out their starting left back Amirul Adli, pushing his left winger Kweh back and subbing on striker Ilhan Fandi on the wing. Kweh struggled against Liston Colaco, getting yellow carded early on, but what the coach wanted was clear: attack back. He wanted it to become end-to-end; he didn't mind conceding chances as long as solid ones were created. And so they attacked... and did so with a calm precision that seemed to elude the Indians even during those utopian 43 minutes.
The second goal came when big Ikhsan Fandi ran straight down the middle, played it out wide to Shawal Anuar, who kept his head and passed it to Song - who slammed it into the roof of the net with another unsaveable finish.
India then lost all shape and coherence in their desperate hunt to get back, with five attackers brought on, but old habits, bad ones, crept back into the game. Crosses didn't clear the first man, shots were snatched at, simple passes were misplaced. Desperation soon turned into something more familiar for the Indian fan... nothingness.
After the match, Khalid Jamil was typically Khalid Jamil, taking full responsibility for the result even as he quietly spoke about the losses of concentration that he believed led to the two Singapore goals. He refused to be drawn into conversations of the future, understandably, even if he did drop a hint that magical realism might be a short-lived genre in his coaching career: "I like defending more, today we attacked we lost, if we had defended [better]... in the end, [the] result is all that matters."
In a way, that is true. For this result means India won't make it to a 24-team Asian Cup, something that ought to be unforgivable. The post-mortem will go on deep for this one, and blame can be assigned to many quarters: from players being picked (or not), to choice of coaches, to motivation... but the problem remains the personnel doing the post-mortem. Jamil spoke briefly about how his players have not had any game time (implying that affected their ability to sustain intensity) due to the lack of a league, but progress on that remains distinctly unclear.
In fact, a few hours before the match kicked off, the All India Football Federation remained embroiled in a dispute over one particular clause in their new constitution, going to-and-fro both current and former Supreme Court justices in an effort to get rid of it (the clause says a national body member cannot also be a state body member)... but that is where Indian football is at the moment. At a point of great uncertainty and pure chaos.
On Tuesday, we saw the briefest glimpse of what-could-be, only for it to be replaced by the inevitable. The best those of watching from outside-in can do is cling on, and hope, that amidst the chaos, those 43 minutes show us a way out.