The 2018 SAFF Championship final was a football match that took place on 15 September 2018 at the Bangabandhu National Stadium, Dhaka. It was announced that the matches during the tournament, including the final, would take place at the Bangabandhu nation stadium, Dhaka. The Maldives came out 2–1 winners against India to secure their second SAFF Championship.

Venue Dhaka Bangabandhu National Stadium Capacity: 36,000 Route to the final India and Maldives were in the same group alongside Sri Lanka, against whom both these teams played their first match. Maldives were held onto a 0–0 draw by Lankans but India defeated them 2–0. This result left Maldives and Sri Lanka level on points, goal difference, goals against and head-to-head. The place for the semi-final spot was then decided by a coin toss in which Maldives came on top.

In the first semi-final Maldives defeated Nepal 3–0 and in the second semi-final match India defeated their arch-rivals Pakistan by the score of 3–1 to reach the final. India came to this tournament with a young squad missing senior players like Sunil Chhetri and Gurpreet Singh Sandhu as part of preparation for their 2019 AFC Asian Cup campaign. MaldivesRoundIndiaOpponentResultGroup stageOpponentResult0–0Match 12–00–2Match 22–0Team220040+26201102-21201102-21Final standingsTeam220040+26201102-21201102-21OpponentResultKnockout stageOpponentResult3–0Semi-finals3–1

Match details

GK 22Mohamed FaisalRB 4 Hussain SifaauCB 2 Ali SamoohCB 13Akram Abdul Ghanee (c) LB 25Samdhooh MohamedDM 20Ibrahim Waheed HassanDM 10Hamza Mohamed AM 17Ibrahim MahudheeAM 23Hussain NihanSS 7 Ali Fasir CF 11Naiz Hassan Substitutions:DF 3 Ahmed Numaan MF 6 Mohamed Arif FW 9 Asadhulla Abdulla Manager: Petar Šegrt GK 1 Vishal KaithCB 12Sarthak GoluiCB 2 Salam Ranjan SinghCB 14Vinit RaiRWB 5 Davinder Singh LWB 3 Subhasish Bose (c) CM 22Nikhil PoojariCM 7 Anirudh Thapa CM 19Ashique KuruniyanCF 9 Manvir SinghCF 15Farukh Choudhary Substitutions:MF 8 Germanpreet Singh MF 11Hitesh Sharma FW 10Sumeet Passi Manager: Stephen Constantine

Assistant referees: Hossein Ziari (Iran) Apichit Nophuan (Thailand) Fourth official: Sivakorn Pu-udom (Thailand) |}Match rules: 90 minutes 30 minutes of extra time if scores level Penalty shoot-out if scores still level 12 substitutes named, of which three may be used

See also 2018 SAFF Championship

References

External links

SAFF Official website