Easy win for Churchill

Jamal received the ball down the middle from a goal kick and relayed it to Chibuzor, who put a forward pass to Marcus, beating a defender with his head.Marcus controlled the ball inside the box and made space to neatly place the ball into the net to the left of the goalkeeper Manoj Jaggi.

Churchill consolidated the lead in the 65th minute. Defender Emeka Okeke, who was declared the man of the match, passed the ball to Jamal on the left. Jamal ran down the flank and crossed it to Chibuzor, who made no mistake in finding the net.

Churchill played an attacking game from the startwith their medios Bassim Yonnan and Tejinder Kumar controlling the midfield. They could have won by a bigger margin had Marcus and Chibuzor not missed at least three chances each.Mahindras’ keeper Manoj Jaggi, who played an outstanding game under the bar, denied them a goal on several occasions. The absence of defender Ramesh Razak and Sushanta Mazumdar was felt on several occasions as Churchill defenders left a lot of gap for the rival forwards to exploit.

Churchill after missing an early chance went ahead in the sixth minute. Three mintues later, a hardworking Basim Yonan failed to find the target as he ballooned the ball over the bar from inside the box.

Churchill, who found a lot of space in the rival defence, kept on prodding the ball into the vacant spot, but despite getting open chances, striker Marcus and Chibuzor failed to beat keeper Jaggi. Churchill could have consolidated the lead in the 11th minute when a move between Marcus and Tejinder saw the latter chipping the ball to Chibuzor, whoseheader hit the cross bar.

Mahindras, who made occasional counter moves, had a nice chance to score in the 15th minute but Santosh Kashyap saw his header missing target narrowly off a cross from Satish Minz.