It was a brilliant day for under-16 Indian footballers on Saturday. They demolished Rosenheim under-16 boys with a scoreline of 14-1 in their exposure trip to Germany. This team, selected by India’s coach for the under-17 World Cup is also likely to participate in a similar friendly match against the under-16 football team of giants Bayern Munich before the Indians fly for Tabriz City in Iran to take part in AFC Under-16 qualifiers in September. The German coach of the national under-16 coach Nicholai Adams said after Saturday’s match that although the opposition team was not up to the mark, still he is satisfied with the boys’ progress so far. Now he is looking at the team’s match against Bayern undr-16 boys which Adams feel, is going to be a true test for his boys.
The match against Rosenheim U-16 was their fifth practice match since their arrival in Germany in late July 2015. The first goal for the colts came in as early as the 6th minute when Gaston opened the scoring. Thereafter, Aramjeet doubled the score converting from the spot in the 9th minute after Komal was brought down. Komal soon made it 3-0 in the 12th minute and then Ninthoi made it 4-0 two minutes later. The rivals soon reduced the margin making it 4-1 in the 20th minute. But the Indian colts made it 5-1 off a counter attack in the 25th minute – Rahul scoring his second of the match and the score didn’t change till the interval.
The match was played of 80 minutes with two halves of 40 minutes each.
Changing over, Head Coach Nicolai Adam made three substitutions as Samsher, Lal and Aman came in for Nazaw, Suresh and Sanjeev respectively. Rahul soon made it 6-1 to complete his hat-trick in the 43rd minute. The Indian boys scored at regular intervals much to the frustration of their rivals. Ninthoi made it 7-1 in the 51st minute while Aman made it 8-1 in the 55th minute – scoring off a cross from Nong. Nicolai wanting to give exposure to as many boys as possible, made three more substitutions in the 49thminute. Sherif came in for Sumit, Ajay replaced Gaston while Nong came in for Rahul.
That was followed by three more changes in the 57th minute Jitu was replaced by Joseph; Aman by Aniket and Komal by Inayat. Keeping in mind the hot conditions, the Referee also gave a water break at the hour mark. Immediately after the water break, Inayat scored to make it 9-1.
The score went into double digits when Amarjeet made it 10-1 in the 63rd minute. He was assisted by Ninthoi. Boris came up with two goals in two minutes to make it 12-1 by the 66th.
The 13th goal was scored by Ninthoi in the 68th minute while Aniket completed the rout in the 75thminute