Premier League quality. 95 international goals. The pre-match talk was all about Sunil Chhetri and Hamza Choudhary's pedigree, but all Shillong witnessed was an India vs Bangladesh fixture that felt like something from decades ago.
It was agricultural football, tackles flying everywhere, with panicked long balls from both teams and the midfield bypassed at times. Hamza Choudhury's FA Cup win and 57 Premier League games with Leicester City must have felt a world away, and perhaps that's why it felt as though the midfielder was never on the same wavelength as his teammates.
It wasn't too different for India, with coach Manolo Marquez skewering his team after the game, saying, "When you enter in the game, and in five seconds you concede that chance... I don't want to talk too much, because I am very angry, disappointed with the performance of everyone, starting with the coach. I don't have words to explain this poor performance from everyone.
"This is not enough -- maybe this is the reality of Indian football. The positive is that we didn't concede a single goal with the chances they created."
The tone of the game that Marquez was referring to came five seconds in, when Vishal Kaith passed straight to Mojibor Jony, trying to keep the ball from going out and left a wide-open goal, only for the Bangladeshi midfielder to miss scoring from an acute angle. It was error after error from India's defensive setup as the game progressed, Shahriar Emon ghosting between Rahul Bheke and Sandesh Jhingan multiple times, and spurning two very presentable chances with headers that went wide of goal.
Kaith, after a very assured performance in the 3-0 win against Maldives, looked a shadow of himself as he continued to make mistakes as the game progressed, with poor communication with his defenders hardly helping matters. He did redeem himself with a one-on-one save when Jony ran in behind, but it was a rare positive from a poor showing.
Even Sandesh Jhingan, normally India's defensive stalwart, was given the run around by Rakib Hossain. The Bangladesh forward constantly ran the channels on the right side and had the better of Jhingan with his combination of pace and power. Had this game finished in favour of Bangladesh, Hossain would have earned plenty of credit.
It's telling that Bangladesh coach Javier Cabrera walked away somewhat disappointed, saying, "It's a good result, we're getting a point away from the Pot 1 team in the group. But in the first half, we had the chances to make it 1-0/2-0, so overall disappointed. The team played very well, we can still do better. But we are going to take a lot of positives from this."
Now consider that all of Bangladesh's good work that was expounded upon for the preceding six paragraphs didn't have a single mention of Hamza Choudhury. That is perhaps what will concern Marquez the most. Despite what some will claim, Choudhury's debut was mediocre -- he was defensively sound but offered little going forward. A few displays of his strength were present, but apart from taking advantage of a lenient referee while barging Ayush Chhetri and Liston Colaco off the ball, there was little of note from the midfielder.
This Indian team will undoubtedly face a much better Bangladesh in November, in Dhaka -- and Marquez perhaps realises that the task before him is large. Sunil Chhetri was supposed to be the ace up his sleeve, but the Indian forward missed out on goal no. 96 and a certain winner when he glanced a header wide from close range late on.
It was the kind of chance he'd normally bury; the kind of chance Bangladesh know all too well that Chhetri converts against them. If even Chhetri's magic is dissipating, then that perhaps explains Marquez's disconsolate words after the game.
Because truth be told, while India were disappointing... they weren't awful.
Farukh Choudhary was full of industry up front, and was involved in most of India's best moves, even coming close with a couple of shots. Liston Colaco had the beating of Rahmat Mia multiple times, sending in some very tempting crosses. He even ought to have had an assist from a corner, but Subhasish Bose sent a header wide from three yards out.
Boris Singh also enhanced his reputation with a great performance from right back, but the final ball evaded him.
Ultimately, that's what this game felt like, clutching for narrative straws because the quality simply wasn't there. The only magic that the two big names could pull off was reversing time to take part in a game that felt like football from decades ago. Football that doesn't belong in the 2027 AFC Asian Cup in Saudi Arabia.
Should Marquez not find the answers in the next few months, ahead of Ashley Westwood's Hong Kong on June 10, India will not belong to that Asian Cup as well.