Neymar Jr’s 5 World Final: India’s Joga Bonito bow out in Round of 32 with heads held high

by Chittu Shetty July 21, 2018

Joga Bonita representing India in Red Bull Neymar Jr’s 5 World Final put up a memorable performance as they made it till the round of 32

Joga Bonito squad that represented India at Neymar Jr’s 5 World Final

Out of the 2809 Indian teams across 14 qualifiers that took part in the National qualifiers, Joga Bonita emerged victories to represent India in Brazil for the Neymar Jr’s 5 World Final. The world finals started on July 20 with India grouped alongside England, Slovakia, Luxembourg and Chile in group J.

India started out brightly winning the opening game against Chile 5-0 before succumbing to a disappointing 0-5 loss against England. This was followed by another close loss where they went down 0-1 to Slovakia. But soon India turned things around with another commanding 5-0 win against their next opponent Luxembourg. Despite the two losses, India had done enough with two big 5-0 wins to qualify for the round of 32, where they were set to face Colombia

Group J table: India with 2 wins and 2 loss qualified for the knockouts rounds

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So close yet so far:

Despite dominating performance against Colombia where they held their solitary goal lead for most part of the game, India ended conceding the equaliser with less than 30 seconds left on clock. This meant the game headed into 1vs1 in which team scoring first, qualifies for the next round. Unfortunately India’s Dion couldn’t stop the Colombian opponent from scoring first and eventually got knocked out.

Colombia went on to beat Australia 2-0 in Round of 16 before knocking out host Brazil in quarter-final, their run finally halted at the semi final stage where they lost to Argentina 2-0. Despite the loss at Round of 32, Joga Bonito squad representing India showed their caliber well enough and made the country proud by reaching the Knockout stage.

Joga Bonito’s players representing India in Brazil:

Daniel Fernandes, Pratik Kadam, Johnson Carlos Dsilva, Anthony Machado, Scott Dsouza, Mervin Franklin, Sidhant Kanekar, Dion Menezes, Pritam JB

Watch the game here: India vs Colombia

For better experience check out the highlights at RedBull TV – India vs Colombia

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