7 times Indian football team punched above their weight in international tournaments

1964 AFC Asian Cup, Israel

India was one of the founding members of AFC in 1954, which conducted the first Asian Cup in 1956. Till the third edition in 1964, it used to be a four-team, round-robin tournament. The 18 AFC members were divided into three zones, namely central, eastern and western. The winner of each zone would join the hosts in the main tournament.

India decided against participating in the first edition. In 1960, they finished last in western zone and failed to qualify. In 1964, the western zone comprised of five teams, out of which Afghanistan, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Iran withdrew. India, along with Israel, were among the only teams left. But Israel were the hosts, which left India to represent the western zone.

India made its maiden Asian Cup participation along with champions of previous two editions South Korea, 1956's third-placed team Hong Kong along with hosts Israel. The Indian squad was as follows:

Peter Thangaraj (GK), Menon Chandrasekar, Fortunata Franco, Prasanto Sinha, Arun Ghosh, Mohammed Yusuf Khan, Jarnail Singh, Chuni Goswami, Inder Singh, K. Appalaraju, Arumai Nayagam (GK), S.S. Narayan, Mritunjoy Banerjee, Syed Nayeemuddin, Ram Bahadur, Kajal Mukherjee, H.H. Hamid, Sukumar Samajapati.

Indian goalkeeper Peter Thangaraj

There were two points for winning. In their first match, India defeated the champions South Korea 2-0, with the goals from Appalaraju and Inder Singh in the 2nd and 57th minute respectively.

In the 2nd match, India were up against the hosts Israel but lost the match 2-0. Hong Kong were out of contention by the time they played their last match against India, as they had lost both of their matches. India were still in contention and they did their part by beating Hong Kong 3-1. Thus, getting 4 points with +2 goal difference(GD).

In the final match of the tournament, Israel were up against South Korea, with both of them, along with India, had the chance to lift the trophy. Israel were in the driver's seat as they had 4 points with +3 GD. South Korea had 2 points and -1 GD. So, for India to win, Korea had to defeat Israel by a margin of 2 goals. But it was not to be as Israel came out 2-1 winners. India had to be content with the runners-up position. Till date, this is the best performance of India in the AFC Asian Cup. Inder Singh was the joint top-scorer in the tournament.