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Salgaocar crush EB to lift Fed Cup
India Blooms News Service
Kolkata, Sept 29 (IBNS): Salgaocar SC thrashed defending champion Kingfisher East Bengal 3-1 to claim the 33rd Federation Cup after the gap of 14 years at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata.
It was Chidi Edeh who scored the first goal for Salgaocar in 4th minute and was followed by Francis Fernandes in 19thand Ryuji Sueoka in 66th minute. Alan Gow pulled one back for the Kolkata giants after converting a spot.
With this fourth Federation Cup title Goan outfit has become the first non-Kolkata club to win the premier domestic cup competition in Indian football since Mahindra United in 2005.
Salgaocar coach Karim Bencherifa made four changes to the starting lineup, While Trevor Morgan took a gamble to start with Mehtab Hussain and Raju Gaikwad, Robin Singh also returned from suspension to partner Alan Gow upfront while leaving Tolgay Ozbey to cool heals.
The much anticipated match started with both the teams taking attacking posture but it was Salgaocar who drew the first blood with Chidi Edeh scoring through a header on a perfect cross from Junior Elija. In the 8th minute Morgan’s decision to include Mehtab backfired when he had to be replaced by Sanju Pradhan.
In the 11th minute red and gold brigade came very close to equalise when Robin Singh passed a cross to into the box to Alan Gow to which he couldn’t contact.
The Goan giants doubled their lead in the 19th minute when Francis Fernandes got behind the East Bengal defence and tried to score but couldn’t get past Sandip Nandy, who saved Francis’ first shot but on a rebound Francis put the ball in the net to stun the crowd in the stadium.
In the 26th minute East Bengal scored their first goal through a spot converted by Alan Gow. Who send diving Karanji to wrong side. After first goal East Bengal tried to get back in the latter half of the first period but Robin Singh wasted a golden opportunity when he failed to connect to a low cross from Saumik Dey.
In the second half Trevor Morgan replaced Penn Orji with Tolgay Ozbey while Bencherifa made a double substitution at the hour mark as Ryuji Sueoka replaced Junior while Gilbert Oliveira came on for Ishfaq Ahmed.
The gamble took by Bencherifa to introduce Sueoka paid dividend when he netted third goal in the 66th minute in the back of an empty net after Sandip failed to collect a low cross from Chidi. Hence crushing any chance for the Kolkatan side to make a comeback in the match.
Though East Bengal dominated possession in the dying hours of the match but couldn’t comeback as Salgaocar held on to a 3-1 victory to win their first Federation Cup since 1997. And for East Bengal what remained was the story of ‘missed chance and lost opportunity’.
The winner Salgaocar receive Trophy and Rupees 25 lakh as a prize money while runner up Kingfisher East Bengal had to contend with Rupees 15 lakh as a prize money.
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