CALCUTTA: Mohammedan sporting’s scored victory over Metallic of USSR to march into the semifinals of the Jawaharlal Nehru centenary international soccer tournament at the Salt Lake stadium in this capital of eastern state of West Bengal on Jan 11th.
Mohammedan sporting, who played an aggressive game throughout, scored the match winner 10 minutes before the final whistle.
The winners, who surprised Zambian XI by an identical margin, now have four points from two outings. They will play their last group B match against Argentina’s gimnasia de la plata.
Metialics, ranked seventh in the USSR, failed to match the form which fetched their country’s national squad four consecutive titles in the Jawaharlal Nehru cup till last year.
‘Skipper Chibuzor, one of the three Nigerians in the team, was a thorn in the metallic defense and his swift movement kept the opponents guessing.
‘Another Nigerian, Emeka Ezuego, played as central mid-fielder also lending a helping hand to the defense.
The Soviets failed to crack Mohammedan sporting’s defense despite a couple of clear chances and a number of sudden counter attacks.
Mohammedan sporting also created at least three good scoring chances before their match winner. The only goal of the match, however, came in the 88th minute following a flag kick by Babu Mani,
It was followed up by Christopher, who ‘sent the ball crashing into the net,
Talking to PTI moments after the squad returned here from the 44 day tour Saturday, Srikkanth said, “given our relative inexperience, we did well to draw the test series, If we had batted with a little more application, we could have reversed the trend of losing one day games to Pakistan,”
The skipper picked out Sanjay Manjrekar, Sachin Tendulkar and Manoj Prabhakar for a special word, adding that rookie seamer Vivek Razdan bowled well despite the limited experience.
Manager Borde said, “The boys did wonderfully in the test series, translating their resolve to match Pakistan into deeds,”
Article extracted from this publication >> January 19, 1990
