Sports»
MMC complete hattrick
KATHMANDU, DEC 16 - Goalkeeper Binod Dangol’s brilliance helped Manang Marshyangdi Club (MMC) complete a title hat-trick this year winning the Martyr’s Memorial ANFA-SanMiguel Invitational Football Tournament as they thrashed Kolkata’s Super Division’s fourth-placed Ever-ready Association 4-2 in the penalty shoot-out here today at the Dasrath Stadium.
The match was extended to the penalty shoot-out after
both the teams failed to break
0-0 deadlock in the regulation as well as in the added extra-time.
In the tense final that saw six yellow cards, Dangol saved W Ali’s spot-kick to architect the title win for the club that has already won the Khukuri Cup and National League this year. S Charabarty too missed skiing the ball high above the bar to send thousands of spectators cheering for the local club.
Captain Kumar Thapa, Rajan Rayamajhi, Navin Neupane and Basant Gauchan all scored for MMC after the national champions failed to covert numerous netting chances earlier in regulation time and extra time. After referee Gyani Raja Shrestha sent off their captain Earnest Jeremiah with the second yellow in the 57th minute, Ever-ready started playing defensively.
Nigerian Jeremiah, having brilliant dribbling skill, was cautioned for half-a-dozen times before he was finally shown the second yellow. He showed disagreement over the decision and even pushed fourth official Shyam Lama inviting a few bottle hits from the spectators - one of the bottles hit him and his smiling face turned angry as he threw it back to the stand.
"He lost his temper and I don’t think the card was wrong," Eveready coach Asit Ghosh who also claimed that referee’s other few decisions were biased. However he admitted the sent-off played a vital role in their defeat.
Both the goalkeepers played splendidly during the game. Dangol denied opposition’s strikers at least in two lethal occasions - one of that in first minute of the second half of golden goal time and the other in the second minute of second half of regular time when he advanced up to the D-box line to dive and capture the ball in one-versus-one chance.
MMC failed on numerous chances. Striker Basant Thapa and Tashi Chhiring missed many chances of scoring while Rajan Rayamajhi was invisible.
"They didn’t try to score and played too defensively," said MMC coach Arjun Lama after the match. "They neither played themselves to score not let us do so." Lama however acknowledged that his strikers didn’t play well.Posted on: 2003-12-17 04:07
Headlines
Advertisements
