Odafe Okolie scored a goal in each half to dash East Bengal’s chances of winning the title as Churchill Brothers edge past them 2-1 to keep their hopes alive in the I-League match at the Nehru stadium, Fatorda on Sunday. Churchill Brothers were leading 1-0 at half time with Odafe Okolie scoring his first goal of the match in the 31st minute. He then went on to complete his brace in the 58th minute through a penalty goal. East Bengal reduced the margin in the 79th minute through striker Baljit Sahni. The Kolkata’s club’s defeat on Sunday puts Goan clubs Salgaocar Sports Club and Dempo in a better position to win the title. Salgaocar, who are at the top of the table with 53 points, will win the title if they win their last match against JCT as they will end on 56 points. If Dempo win all their remaining three matches they too will end on 56 points but will finish second behind Salgaocar, as they have an inferior goal difference. Churchill, who have an outside chance to win the title, now needs to beat Pune FC in their last match and hope that Salgaocar lose against JCT so that both the teams will finish on 53 points each. Meanwhile, East Bengal, who have two more matches to play, remained on 47 points from 24 matches. Earlier, Churchill Brothers completely dominated the first half and East Bengal were nowhere in the game. But in the second session they covered a lot of ground and had a couple of chances to even win the match but they could not capitalize on them. Churchill too had their chances in both the sessions of play but their striker also falter in the last minute. One of the strikers of Churchill Brothers who missed most of the opportunities, in both sessions, was their foreign import Kayne Vincent, who was rightly replaced in the second session with Durga Boro.
Odafe too had chances which either missed the target or hit the rival goalkeeper. East Bengal’s Australian striker Tolgay Ozbey who was tightly marked by Churchill’s defender Rowinson Rodrigues was nowhere in action. He along with Saikant Saha Roy and Sanji Pradhan also missed chances which if utilised could have given goals for the East Bengal team to at least draw the match. Churchill Brothers could have opened their account in the very 22nd minute of play when Odafe fed Vincent on a platter who ended in shooting the ball wide from close. Then came the blistering 25 yard shot taken by medio Zakeer Mundampara which hit the post and came back into play. Churchill’s other medio Lenny Rodrigues sprayed some good passes to the forwards, which went unutilised. This young medio could have scored as well but his shot was rather off the target in the second session. In the 30th minute of play, Odafe ran from the centre with the ball, dodging a couple of East Bengal defenders and when he reached the box, sent a weak effort that had no problems at all for the East Bengal keeper Jayanta Pal. However, in the very next minute he made amends of his early folly and scored on receiving a cross from Kayne Vincent to give Churchill Brothers the lead. For the first few minutes it was Churchill Brothers who controlled the proceedings but then slowly and steadily, East Bengal took over and could have carried the day had their strikers been accurate in their shooting abilities. On one such occasion a cross from Sushanth Mathew went straight to Tolgay Ozbey who messed up the chance by shooting wide from close. Thereafter it was Churchill’s Vincent who missed the opportunity to score on receiving a cross from Stephen Dias. When the second session was hardly 12 minutes old, Churchill Brothers made it 2-0 in their favour. Binesh Balan of Churchill brothers who was in the clear with the ball inside the box, was brought down by East Bengal defender Thockchom Naoba Sing. Referee Magho Singh from Manipur had no hesitation to point to the penalty spot which Odafe shot to the far corner of the nets to the left of East Bengal keeper Jayanta Paul. After missing a couple of chances and Baljit Sahni seeing his shot heating the post, East Bengal reduced the margin. Substitute T Naoba Singh beautiful crossed the ball which eluded the entire Churchill defence to Baljit Sahni who had no difficulty at all to tap it into the nets of Churchill Brothers.
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