Manvir Singh scores lone goal for India in Kuwait; India next play Qatar in Bhubaneshwar.
Across Manvir Singh’s football career coaches have chosen to value his towering presence in an Indian team usually devoid of height. When Igor Stimac raised the issue of the lack of height his boys were going to suffer from against Kuwait in their first World Cup qualifier Round 2 game on the road, Manvir was once again the band-aid that would have to be applied.
On late Thursday night, the Mohun Bagan forward was the holding man for the forward line and gave India the only goal of the game to make a winning start to their Fifa 2026 World Cup qualification campaign.
Almost like home
Of all the expatriate communities in Kuwait, India’s numbers of just under 10 lakh people living in the Middle East country is the largest demographic of immigrants. That demographic represented itself over the Kuwaiti fans, who were outcheered by the Indians present at the 60,000-seater Jaber Al-Ahmad International Stadium. Those cheers became loud when India had the ball and even louder when Sahal Abdul Samad, the Indian attacking midfielder who played his formative years in Kuwait, had the ball.
This was the third time both teams were meeting this year, with the first clash between the two known for its quality and the second for the fiery battles that ended with India winning a penalty shootout to take the SAFF Cup. Sunday was a lot more lacklustre with Kuwait taking control for large parts of the game but never really threatening Gurpreet Singh’s goal and India managing to control any forays from their opponents but not showing the technical acumen to keep a hold of the ball and string quality passes together.
