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Kathmandu Saturday January 13, 2001 Paush 29, 2057.
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Belgaria beat Police to march into final
Post Report
KATHMANDU, Jan 12- Belgaria Sports Club, Calcutta knocked Mahendra Police
Club out of the Birthday Cup Friday in the first semi-final played here today.
The match had to be decided on penalties after both the teams fineshed
scoreless in the regulation and thirty minutes of extra time. In the penalty shootout the
visiting team from Calcutta prevailed 4-3 against the home side to the disappointment of
the home supporters.
The first half saw the Mahendra Police Club slightly dominate Calcutta’s
Belgaria Sports Club. Mid-way through the first half they seemed to have match in their
control but failed to score any goal.
Mahendra Police had a chance to steal a goal in the 20th minute when Hari
Khadka squandered a costly chance minutes before he was injured and taken to hospital.
Devnarayan Chaudhary missed another chance in the last minute of the first
half. Similarly, Calcutta’s Rafiq missed a crucial cross pass from S Dutta in the 8th
minute missing a closest chance to score from the box.
Mahendra Police started playing vigorously in the second half in search of
goal but their attack didn’t pay as most of their shots either missed the taget or
squandered away through recurring miss-kick. Calcutta didn’t lag behind the pace and
played an attacking game too but seemed to be suffering through the lack of effective
striking performance.
Despite many attempts and tremendous pressure over the visitors in the
potentially explosive second half, Mahendra police failed to strike at the goal resulting
in the depressing sequence of missed shots.
By the time the regulation 90 minutes was over, the score on both the sides
was confined to 0-0. The 30 minute extra time didn’t make any difference for either
team forcing the match into a penalty shootout. Ramesh Budathoki squandered a costly
chance through the first 30 minute of the golden goal session while Owino Akamu of
Calcutta squandered a costly header.
The closest chance to score fell on Ramesh Budathoki in the second half of
the golden goal session but his shot hit the post to deflect, shattering the hope of
Police. A huge crowd of spectators were kept to the edge of their seats right till the end
of the tie breaker.
Rakesh Shrestha and Anil Adhikari proved villains for the Polise team as they
missed their penalty shots.
Dev Narayan Chaudhary (7), Dilip Katuwal (12), and Kishor Subba scored the
penalty for Police while Rafiq, S. Dutta, Owino Akamu and Moses, both Nigerians scored .
Manang Marshyangdi will take on RCT in the last
semifinal tomorrow.
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