Doha: India football coach Igor Stimac said “injustice” was done and his team’s “dream was killed” by the blatantly “irregular” goal that allowed Qatar to claw back and clinch the must-win World Cup qualifying match here.

“Qatar were lucky tonight, especially because they came back from 0-1 with an irregular goal. I can confirm that now because I have seen the replay. The whole ball was out of play and the goal was given,” Stimac didn’t mince words as he spoke about what went wrong in the game.

“It shouldn’t be happening in today’s football because that goal changed everything in this game. It could’ve happened to Qatar today and I would say the same. I’m not looking for an excuse. “I feel sad that when you have 23 boys working really hard and living the dream, to achieve something, and that dream is killed because we didn’t stop such things from happening,” the Croat added.

The loss, however, cannot hide the fact that India have been consistently poor in their campaign, the lowest point being a home loss to Afghanistan. But on Tuesday, which was India’s first game after the talismanic Sunil Chhetri’s retirement, Stimac said his players gave their everything and he had no complaints. “They were fantastic. All Indian fans can be proud of their team today. We controlled the game for a major part, with a high press against a good Qatari team. You could say that the chances India had were better than Qatar’s,” he said.

Stimac was non-committal about his future with the team after it crashed out of the 2026 World Cup qualification race . “What I can tell you is that it was obvious tonight that India has a good future in football. Many people will say that Qatar played with a reserve team, but our team is not that older than the Qatari team today,” he added.