'The boys gave everything, they deserved more': Head coach Ishfaq Ahmed

They worked long and hard for that dream for over a year, and were within four minutes of realising that.

For 86 minutes of the match between Thailand and India, India had the ticket to the 2025 AFC U17 Asian Cup, to be held in Saudi Arabia, in their bag.

Ultimately, one moment of quality from Thailand snatched it away from them.

There was still a glimmer of hope after the game. Had there been some results from other groups, which were yet to finish, India could have still qualified.

However, after Australia and Indonesia played out a goalless draw in Kuwait, India were officially knocked out of the U17 Asia Cup qualifiers.

Later in the night, Hong Kong's surprising win over Syria meant that Iran qualified, pushing India down to seventh place in the rankings for the best second-placed teams. Only the top five qualified.

Head coach Ishfaq Ahmed was nothing but proud of his boys, and shouldered the blame for the failure upon himself.

"I'm really disappointed with the result, but not with the boys," he said. "They gave everything. They deserved more. They competed well against the hosts, they were leading twice. They were fitter than them. One lapse of concentration and we conceded in the end."

"I take the blame. We couldn't improve where we needed to. Football is cruel. If you don't take your chances, the opponents will punish you. We can't score twice and then concede three against a team like Thailand. But I'm super proud of the boys. Playing like this with that sort of a crowd behind the home team. They are just 16," he added.

"I want to thank the federation for giving me this opportunity with this talented bunch of players. I think from this batch, most of them will progress to the under-20s, and I hope that in a few years, we will have a good, strong U20 team," he concluded.