Mohun Bagan rally to hold Mahindra United

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 2: On Thursday, Mohun Bagan's reputation as the tournament's most successful side was almost blown away by the Mumbai ...

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER 2: On Thursday, Mohun Bagan’s reputation as the tournament’s most successful side was almost blown away by the Mumbai side Mahindras United, on the turf at the Ambedkar Stadium.

It needed a last-minute RC Prakash goal for the green and maroon shirts to pull off a stunning fightback and hold the Mahindras to a 2-2 draw in a Group A quarterfinal match. In the other match of the day, defending champions Salgaocar’s performance left a lot to be desired as they had to sweat it out before putting it against the young brigade of Tata Football Academy by a solitary goal. The match-winner was scored by Climax Lawrence in the 60th minute. It was a creditable finish for Bagan since they achieved it with only 10 men, after stopper-back M Suresh was penalised for unnecessarily elbowing the rival star Manjit Singh, who had scored both the goals for Mahindras. Mahindras, in fact, should have been the easy winners.

But, Mohammad Najeeb, who substituted Manjit, failed to connect the ball after attempting a half-volley inside the six-yard box with only minutes left for the final whistle. His slapdash finishing denied Mahindras their first win in the tournament. Bagan bounced back soon after this to level the score 2-2. With both teams enjoying an equal share of the midfield, it turned out to be the match of the tournament so far. It would be too early to predict about the semi-finalists from Group A, but if the performance of these two teams is any indication, they are the favourites for the two slots.

Mahindras United, sporting their new orange jerseys and under their new coach Shabbir Ali, were busily competitive as was too be expected. Enjoying the potent strike force in their ranks, they surged ahead as early as in the ninth minute through Manjit. Capitalising on a Lolendro Singh misclearance, Mahindra’s Abbas Ali Rizvi won the ball inside the 18-year-box to devise a scoring chance for Manjit.

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