India slumped to a disappointing 5-2 loss against DPR Korea in their second match of the Hero Intercontinental Cup 2019 at the EKA Arena in Ahmedabad on Saturday. The Blue Tigers were 3-0 down at half-time and despite second-half goals by Lallianzuala Chhangte and Sunil Chhetri, went down 5-2 eventually.

At the post-match press conference, India head coach Igor Stimac began by drawing out the positives from an otherwise forgettable night. He said, "The second-half was positive. We came out with our heads up, with courage and confidence, and we decided to play football. It was much better than the first 45 minutes, when we were lost without any courage, without any self-confidence."

The Croat claimed that he had no idea why the players played the way they did in the first-half and stated, "I couldn’t understand the first-half performance to be honest because I gave these players the chance to represent India. I told them to enjoy their football. But if you don’t have enough courage to play your football, if you’re not ready to show up and fight, you will suffer and that’s what happened to us. We made many mistakes in the first 45 minutes, took a lot of wrong decisions, didn't show up when it was necessary, didn't put up a fight, didn't cover each other. But then in the second-half, it was a totally different story."

Stimac then declared that he now had a very clear picture of his future squad. “I’m proud of the second-half showing because when you go 3-0 down, it's very difficult to get back up. I said in the half-time, there is another 45 minutes, you can change everything. All you need to do is make these people happy in the stands, show your heart while playing, show your courage, fight for every ball and pass. And they did it. We had many problems with our defenders. We are missing 6-7 very important players and it was difficult to work like that. But now everything is very clear to me, who we can count on. Everybody has got their chance," he said.

The 51-year-old, however, refused to take any names and said, "That’s not my way of working. I will keep that in the dressing room, between us. But you cannot hide from the truth. The evidence is there. When I changed the team (in the second-half), when I put new players on the pitch, we started playing, we started creating chances, we were dangerous in front of their goal. It was difficult to keep the shape but I was proud of the way they played. That’s the football I want my team to play.”

Stimac also asserted that he was looking at these matches as nothing more than an indication of where his squad currently stands. "We use these games as friendly matches so that we can find out everything about all candidates and chose the team for the FIFA World Cup 2022 qualifiers. So, I cannot look at the score now. I need to look at the score for India in the future, not now," he opined.

The head coach of the winning team, Yun Jong Su, meanwhile, expressed his delight with the performance of his players and said, "Today was a very crucial match for our team because we needed to score as many goals as possible to get a better chance to go to the final. So, I think the players tried to score many goals today. Five goals today and they played at their best."

Read the full match report here.