I thank Almighty Allah for giving me the opportunity to play. I also want to thank the supporters who backed us throughout the match. I was lucky to get such a goal and if you want to know my feeling, it is amazing.

— Yeasin Arafat

Having come back from a goal down and one man short to earn a creditable 1-1 draw against India, Bangladesh football coach Oscar Bruzon mentioned that the Bangladesh football is still well and truly alive and expressed his satisfaction with the performance of the national team in their second SAFF Championship encounter at Maldives yesterday.

"I want to say that Bangladesh football is alive, so let's go and get more points from the tournament. Of course we are satisfied with the performance of all single players today. We believe in our players and our country as we wanted to play positive football against India," Bruzon said at the post-match conference yesterday.

In the last five meetings between Bangladesh and India, Bangladesh drew all matches except the last match where they lost 2-0 during the World Cup Qualifying tie in Doha in June.

"The boys performed excellent but today we should've won the match. If we did not concede the lead in the first half, the plan would've been the same in the second half. I think the chances of winning the match was very, very high but unfortunately we conceded a goal in a manner which we need to analyse," said Bruzon while explaining the strong comeback despite being one man short in the last 40 minutes.

"When you've received a bamboo, you need to be even stronger because you don't want to receive a second bamboo. We got one point and we're going to play a very tough opponent Maldives in the next match," said the 44-year-old coach, who has been given the responsibility to guide the team in SAFF Championship in place of British coach Jamie Day.

Sunil Chhetri had broken the deadlock for India earlier in the match. PHOTO: COLLECTED

"We said before that every problem we have should make us stronger and that's what I am trying to communicate, that we are an unbeatable force when we play with one mind. Today, I think we controlled the first half. They tried to play in the wings and we controlled the central area for ninety minutes. Sunil is a quality player and we allowed him to score. But I think the first half was absolutely balanced so I can't say we are better," said Bruzon.

India were not as dominant as they were during their 2-0 win over Bangladesh in Doha and Bangladesh grabbed all opportunities to play on level terms against India, who are 82 places ahead of Bangladesh in the FIFA Ranking.

"India was coming more in our area, so we needed to change five players and we started making it after 10 minutes of the second half. And I think the changes improved the team though I did not expect to play with 10 men in the second half. And, the players did not want to hold 1-0 and we worked here to win the match and still I feel we missed the full three points," said Bruzon.

Indian coach Igor Stimac congratulated Bangladesh for playing out a 1-1 draw but blamed themselves for the equalizer of Bangladesh.

"It was a good and interesting match and I want to congratulate both India and Bangladesh for presenting a nice match here," said Stimac.