Nayanar Cup: Mumbai FC enter semifinals

KOZHIKODE: I-League teams Mumbai FC and Shillong Lajong FC were stretched by their opponents but managed to come away with crucial wins in Group B matches at the EK Nayanar Memorial Gold Cup at the Corporation stadium on Wednesday.In the first match of the day,Lajong struck twice in the second half to see off Army XI 2-0. Mumbai FC thenallowed Southern Samity to draw level midway through the second half beforeturning things up a notch to win 3-1. This win means that Mumbai FChave joined their city counterparts Air India in the semifinals while Army XIhave crashed out after two successive losses.Army sure gave Lajong agood run for their money. Had they executed better in the final third aftergetting into many promising situations, the end result might have beendifferent.But credit to Lajong for sticking with their ploy ofpassing the ball through midfield and trying to exploit the wings. A good movedown the right flank in the 62nd minute led to their first goal with SekhohaoTuboi dispatching a fine header. The second goal also came aboutafter a good counter-attack from midfield. Boithang Haokip was felled in thearea in the 88th minute as he rushed on to a through ball from Indiainternational Renedy Singh. Renedy, who had only come on as a substitute minutesearlier, then stepped up to send a cool penalty into the bottom right-handcorner of the goal.Mumbai got off to a flying start in the secondmatch, going ahead in the very first minute. A long throw by Dhanachandra Singhwas headed in by Ebi Theophilus. However, Samity controlled the game for most ofthe first half and twice, Suroj Mondal had good chances to find the back of thenet.The second half continued in the same vein with Samity enjoyingmost of the possession. They drew level in the 75th minute - substitute ZicoZoremsanga unleashing a right-footed thunderbolt from the top of the 15-yardarea.But Khalid Jamil's side hit back soon after, again through along throw. This time, Dhanachandra was the scorer, his first header coming backoff the crossbar before he managed to force the ball over the line in the 77thminute. Gbeneme Friday made sure of the points three minutes later, uncorking alow right-footed shot from 30 yards out that left keeper Avijit Ghosh with nochance.On Thursday, MEG Bangalore take on BN Railway, Kolkata in thelast Group A fixture.