Threats, controversy and farce as Cambodia lose to India

Cambodia lost their opening Asian Cup Qualification match to India 2-0 last night, but the latest defeat was literally insignificant compared to the circus that preceded the match.

To read about Cambodia losing to Timor click here.

Cambodia threaten to boycott the match

According to “Fresh News” Sao Sokha President of the Football Federation of Cambodia was somewhat unhappy with the treatment received by Cambodia from both the Asian Football Federation, as well as their Indian hosts stating “The AFC, Indian Football Association (IFA), and tournament organizers, shall immediately apologize to Cambodia for not taking care of Cambodian men’s national football team in terms of food, accommodation and the Cambodian flag”, continuing with the following threat “within three hours, if the AFC, IFA, organizers refuse to issue an apology to Cambodia, Cambodia will bring football team back home without playing.”. Quite literally the very definition of taking your ball home when you don’t get your own way.

What followed was somewhat of a Mexican stand-off, with no one quite sure what would happen until a letter from the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) was duly received.

While classed as a “victory” by the Cambodians it was at best a half-hearted reply aimed more to appease than actually being an apology. You can judge by yourself by reading below.

This though of course did manage to get many local netizens pronouncing how Cambodia would not be treated in such a way and that it was a “great victory” against foreigners – see below.

Of course all it actually managed to do was detract from the actual important part, the match.

India 2 Cambodia 0

What to say about this match? Well after the poor display in Vietnam, as well as the recent narrow victory against Timor-Leste few would have entered the match with much confidence, what we ended up with though was much worse.

Cambodia started as they meant to go on, poorly and  fell one behind after conceding a very dubious penalty in the 14th minute. Should it have been a penalty? Probably not, but regardless the goal effectively killed the game.

For the rest of the match both teams looked half-hearted although India were slightly the stronger team. Their loose dominance paid off in the 60th minute when Sunil Chetri scored his second of the match, thus ending Cambodia’s hopes not just in the match, but probably in the tournament itself.

India 2 Cambodia 0 – What does it mean?

Cambodia ranked 171st in the world lost to India, ranked 106th, which on the face of it does not look all that bad. The reality though is that football is the number 1 sport in Cambodia and they should not be ranked among the bottom teams in the world.

This means that all roads effectively lead back to coach Honda, who should results go against him against Hong Kong and Afghanistan should may have to consider resignation.