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Kathmandu Thursday March 07, 2002 Falgun 23, 2058.
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Pokhara XI
stun MPC 4-2 on penalties
Post Report
BUTWAL, March 6 : Pokhara
XI brought Mahendra Police Club’s winning run to the close Wednesday
with a stunning 4-2 win on penalties to move into the semifinals of
the Tilottama Gold Cup Football tournament.
The referee had to
introduce the tiebreaker as the teams failed to make any headway
throughout the regulation time.
Laxman Lama, Hem Gurung,
Tilak Gurung and Prem Pun were all on target for Pokhara. On the other
hand, only Dev Narayan Chaudhary and Raju Katuwal were successful to
translate their shots into goal while Kishore Subba and Ananta Thapa
failed in their attempts.
The win, in a sense,
restored the lost pride of most of the Pokhara XI players, who had
started in the Sahara Blue that lost on toss of a coin to the police
team in the recently concluded Caravan Gold Cup in Pokhara.
MPC taking charge of the
match, held much of the ball possession launching repeated raids. But
Pokhara XI stood firm at the back to keep them away from scoring and
at the same time came up with occasional counterattacks.
Pokhara XI had a close
shave in the 15th minute when Ananta Thapa’s powerful shot, taken
from the penalty area, missed the target by a whisker. And police
team’s striker Hari Khadka saw his close shot blocked away by
Pokhara keeper in the 24th minute.
MPC continued to maintain
pressure on the opposition frequently creating goalscoring chances
only to spurn them away. In the 27th minute, Raju Pulami’s fine
header on a Hari Khadka cross too failed to find the net.
Before that, Pokhara
coming out of MPC shackles, had their first close look at the goal off
a rare counterattack but skipper Rajkumar Shrestha’s shot was saved
by keeper Sanjeev Joshi.
The second half went along
much the same way as the first with MPC launching attack in waves. But
for all their tireless effort they continually met with frustration
despite earning numerous freekicks and corner in the session.
Hari Khadka and Ananta
Thapa were disappointing, missing on several occasions. Especially,
Khadka had a poor afternoon that he would surely like to forget,
spurning a string of glorious chances. It was also because of Pokhara
team defender Rajesh Thapa, who roped in Khadka with his close
marking.
Pokhara did manage to come
up with a few occasional moves in the second half but without any
success. Pokhara XI face off NRT in the tournament’s second
semifinal on Friday.
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