Indian football team's chief coach Wim Koevermans was a visibly satisfied man as he termed his team "deserving winners" of the semi-final match against Maldives while a furious and frustrated Maldives coach Urbanyi Istavan Bela made a contradictory statement that "India never deserved to win."
While India's Dutch coach can take heart from the fact that his strategy of shutting out Ali Ashfaq worked wonderfully.
"I am very proud of the boys as we showed how good we can be. We started defensively and showed patience. The best part was that we didn't allow to get bogged down under any kind of pressure. The combination worked fine for us and we deserved to win," Koevermans said at the post-match press conference.
Maldives' Hungarian coach was, however, livid about a penalty, which he felt was denied to Ashfaq by Jordanian referee Idham Mohammed.
"You don't have to get killed in order to get a penalty," Bela said sarcastically.
"I am sorry but India never deserved to win as we were the ones who were playing football. India were simply playing mindgames," the Maldives coach further added.
But the losing coach did find it hard to explain the poor conduct of his players who attacked the referee and in the process a couple of their players -- Ali Umar and Mohammed Rasheed -- were red-carded.
Asked if he wasn't aware that his team could get disciplinary sanctions from the AFC as some of the players tried to attack All Nepal Football Association (ANFA) treasurer Dheerendra Pradhan, Bela was on the defensive.
"I know what you are saying but players were emotionally charged and I will not hold anything against them."
Koevermans, however, did rub salt into the opposition coach's wounds when asked about "mind games".
