By Andrew Warshaw
April 9 – Former England caretaker manager Peter Taylor has vigorously defended his Bahrain team (pictured in red) in the wake of a FIFA investigation into their astonishing 10-0 win over Indonesia (pictured in white) in a World Cup qualifier.
Taylor laid the blame for the February result, which immediately prompted suspicions of match-fixing, firmly at the door of the Indonesians for fielding such an inexperienced team.
“We did nothing wrong,” said Taylor, hired by Bahrain last July.
“There is no need for us to speak to FIFA.
“At the end of the day, the game was played and we did as well as we possibly could and played the strongest team we could.”
FIFA said it plans to interview match referees, coaching staff and players during a probe of what it called an “unusual” match.
Lebanese referee Andre El Haddad sent off Indonesia’s goalkeeper in the second minute and awarded Bahrain four penalties, two of which were converted.
Bahrain’s monster victory raised suspicions because they went into the game not only trailing Qatar by three points, but with a nine goal swing to make up.
The 10-0 win would have been enough to advance to the next round of the Asian qualifying competition had Qatar not drawn 2-2 with Iran in its final game.
Taylor dismissed any suggestion of wrongdoing and charged Indonesia with wrongly selecting virtually a reserve team whose most experienced player had only been capped 12 times.
“That shouldn’t be done,” he said.
“To respect the competition, they should send their strongest team.
“Just because they couldn’t qualify, it doesn’t mean they should send their reserve team,” he said.
“Bahrain can’t do anything about that.
“All we can do is turn up and try and win a match.
“We should have won by more than 10.
“We missed two penalties.”
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