Chruchill rally twice to hold Bagan

While Nigerian Stephen Abarowei and Uzbek Igor Shkvirin scored for Mohun Bagan in the fourth and 60th minutes, equalisers from the Goa outfit came in the eighth and 67th minutes through Francsis Silveira and Ghanian Osumanu Husseni.

The rivals were held 1-1 in their first leg encounter.

ITI-Dempo in goalless draw
BANGALORE: The poor run of local challengers Indian Telephone Industries and Dempo Sports Club (Goa) continued as the two teams missed opportunities and failed to score in the National Football League here on Thursday.

Both teams, desperately looking for a win to improve their standing in the 12-team league, should blame themselves for muffing chances. ITI have just 12 points while Dempo have nine points at the end of the 14th match.

ITI could not press the home advantage to score goals and tried in vain in the last 15 minutes.

Dempo, who have just one win to their credit, had a good chance early in the first half. But Kannan Priolkar could not push home the ball with N Balaji not in his position having charged out to thwart the move.

In the 27th minute, dimunitive Evsevio D’Souza’s superb header from Mohammed Reza’s header was brilliantly palmed away by Balaji as the ball was dipping in.

ITI also made some attempts to break the rival citadel did not yield results. George Ikeh once shot the ball over the bar.

In the second session, ITI had many opportunitites and made more attempts. Yousuf Ahmed wasted at least a couple of good chances. Yousuf’s header had beaten goalkeeper Vikrant Sharma but captain Stanley Colaco cleared it to safety. Yousuf made two more attempts only to find the goalkeeper blocking them.

The Goan team heaved a sigh of relief when Gabriel Emechete’s shot deflected of a defender from a pass from George Ikeh.

A few minutes later, RC Prakash’s lob just touched the cross bar and went out to the disappointment of ITI team.

Vikrant Sharma decided to kick forward George’s shot from a pass from substitute C Prakash instead to collecting and succeeded in clearing the ball.

Earlier, Balaji was shown yellow card as he charged out and brought down Sameer Naik just outside the box.