India beat Syria to lift Nehru Cup: Finally on Monday August 31, 2009, India won the Nehru cup after beating Syria by 5-4. India beat Syria in penality shoot outs and hence won the second successive Nehru cup title. The match was played in the Ambedkar Stadium on Monday. Subroto Paul, the goal keeper becomes the man of the match. He also saved the three penalties to become India’s savior. This match was watched by Bollywood hottest star Salman Khan, Civil aviation minister Praful Patel and sports minister MJ S Gill. Before this, India had beaten the Syria in front of about 20, 000 crowd to win Nehru cup title.

Match Overview: It was quiet an interesting match; India got its first goal by penalty shoot out. After that it again gained a chance to hit penalty shoot out. This time Renedy took the chance but unfortunately missed the shot as he hit on the pole. In the whole game, Subroto Paul played very well and revived the hope of the team by stopping some important goals. The third penalty is scored by Sunil Chhetri and gave India a lead of one goal. One more time Paul stopped the penalty to retain lead. After that Mehraj missed the penalty which again leveled the Syria to India. The match was at its peak point. Anything could happen anytime and suddenly Sukumar Singh scored a goal and gave India lead of one score. Before penalty shoot outs, India were granted a free kick and this opportunity was not go wasted by Renedy and scored a goal for India, but after this Syrian scored a goal in last minutes to diminish the hope of Indian players and the winning match went out into the penalty shootouts. Now this is the moment every one has eye on the shot outs and goalkeepers. Indian goalkeeper performed well at this moment and played confidently. Due to his positive efforts and last mean goal, India won the match and he was also become the man of the match.

India’ captain got yellow card: The match was totally hot, tensed and keened that the referee had to interfere in the match many times to calm down the players. In the first half the Indian captain Bhaichung Bhutia was handed by yellow card. The first half was ended with no goal. But in second half, India was got chance of free kick which was taken by Steven Dias but was stopped by Syrian goal keeper. The match was too hot in the 60^th minute as the coach of the Syrian team lost his patient. In 89^th minute when the game was in favor of India, Syrians become tense and the coach Ebrahim argued with linesman. This time Haughton stared at him only.