Thapa’s goal the lone bright spot as Uruguay beat India 6-1 in Kolkata
India suffered a 6-1 defeat to Uruguay in a FIFA friendly at Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, despite Anirudh Thapa scoring India’s only goal.
The international window had offered India opportunities to test themselves against three different opponents; it began with a 1-1 draw against Panama in Bengaluru and included a 4-0 loss to Brazil on October 3 before the two matches in Kolkata. The fixtures against Brazil and Uruguay proved particularly challenging for the hosts.
Uruguay opened the scoring when Darwin Nunez converted a penalty in the 11th minute. India responded in the first half when Thapa levelled, after Ryan Williams had troubled Uruguay goalkeeper Thiago Cardozo with a long-range effort earlier in the match.
Thapa’s equaliser carried historical significance: he became only the second Indian to score against Uruguay, after Manas Bhattacharjee’s goal in the 1982 Nehru Cup. The strike briefly gave the home crowd reason for optimism, but India were unable to sustain that momentum.
Play was halted for a 35-minute weather interruption; when the match resumed Maximiliano Araujo scored to restore Uruguay’s lead. Rodrigo Zalazar then produced a solo strike in the 53rd minute to make it 3-1, and six minutes later Zalazar set up Araujo for his second goal of the evening. Goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu was caught out after advancing from his line for Araujo’s goal.
Facundo Pellistri supplied the cross from which Sanabria made it 5-1, and Rodrigo Aguirre completed the scoring in the 86th minute with a finish into the top-left corner. By that stage Uruguay had widened the margin while India struggled to contain the visitors’ movement and passing.
Khalid Jamil had warned ahead of kick-off about the cost of early mistakes and the need for concentration following the Brazil defeat; he said before the match: "Not conceding an early goal is important. We have to go with the flow, but we are going to play against a good team. One mistake can cost us really badly, so we have to be very careful and not take this match lightly at all." The game exposed defensive lapses and India’s difficulty in recovering once behind.
The announced attendance was 37,307, but large sections of Salt Lake Stadium were noticeably empty compared with the Brazil fixture three days earlier. Organisers reduced ticket prices and distributed complimentary passes, including tickets for people affected by the Lionel Messi event fiasco; rain, the weekday scheduling and the 35-minute interruption were cited as practical reasons for the lower turnout, and the Uruguay team did not draw the same level of interest as Brazil.
India finished the international window with a 1-1 draw against Panama and defeats to Brazil and Uruguay; across the two Kolkata matches they conceded 10 goals and scored just once.