Odisha FC kick off Durand Cup campaign with 5-0 victory over BSF Football Team

Kokrajhar (Assam) [India], August 3 (ANI): Odisha FC (OFC) started their campaign in the 133rd Indian Oil Durand Cup, with a dominant 5-0 victory over BSF Football Team (BSF FT) in a Group E encounter played here at the SAI Stadium.

Moirangthem Givson Singh’s double and Rahul Mukhi, Ashangbam Aphaoba Singh and Roshan Panna’s strikes in the second half, gave a comfortable victory to Odisha, as they went on top of the group standings over North East United FC on goal difference.

Odisha FC head coach Amit Rana named a young lineup that has players from the reserves side as well as several experienced talents, like Lalliansanga Renthlei, Givson Singh, Aphaoba Singh, Subham Bhattacharya and Narendra Naik. BSF Football Team Head Coach Gurjit Singh Atwal named an experienced starting lineup, with Mohammed Aasif leading the defensive line.

Odisha began with quick attacks but both teams were holding a steady pace in their efforts to move up the field. Considering Odisha fielded their second team, it can’t be denied that they were playing somewhat better than BSFFT.

The first real chance came in the way of BSFFT with a free-kick 30 m away and it fell at the feet of a BSFFT player standing at the fat post, completely unmarked, who surprisingly passed the ball behind rather than directing it inside the net and the chance was wasted. Odisha did not waste any time and moved up the field and took another shot from the edge of the box, which was easily collected by the goalkeeper before BSFFT did the same and their shot was collected by Odisha goalkeeper Niraj Kumar within a minute of the attack on the other side of the field.

Odisha FC were dominating the game so far with another golden chance where a flying ball inside the opposition box from the right flank went a bit too far away from the player positioning cleverly in the middle. They earned a free-kick that was also taken well but BSFFT goalkeeper Harpreet Singh did well to clear by punching it away.

In the last quarter of the first half, BSFFT was getting into dangerous positions and that too unmarked. On the other hand, Odisha were doing their best and waiting like a fox, as soon as the opponent made a mistake, the Juggernauts were ready to take opportunities other than the times they were building up from midfield. However, before the referee blew the final whistle for halftime, Odisha had their best chance in the game so far. The ball destined to go inside from a very close place was intercepted and cleared well by BSFFT, who did not waste any time and went on the counter-attack soon. They came close even but made the mistake of standing in an offside position.

The Juggernauts began the second-half match where they left off with quick attacks but BSFFT also picked up their pace and it did not take them long to get into dangerous positions near the Odisha box. But expectedly, Odisha managed to get the lead with three BSFFT defenders trying to stop three Odisha players but young, promising forward Rahul Mukhi kept running, beat them on the run and took the lead for the Kalinga Warriors.

In the first ten minutes into the second half of the match, it was all Odisha while Aphaoba from the left side of the field made a beautiful run. No one marked him and even tried to stop him, who curled it beautifully into the net and made it 2-0 for Odisha. Two goals in two minutes from Odisha and the whole stadium was spellbound. The goal came from a beautiful partnership between the last goal scorer, Aphaoba and this goal scorer, Givson Singh, who waited perfectly in the middle of the attack. Aphaoba passed him from the left and BSFFT defenders gave Givson all the time in the world to shoot it and the goalkeeper could do absolutely nothing.

After conceding 3 goals in the span of eight minutes, BSFFT seemed to be rattled in a way. They were making some headway into the opponent box previously which had completely gone and it was entirely the Kalinga Warriors who could have scored two more goals.

In the 79 minute, BSFFT managed to get a dangerous shot in but it missed the net by inches. However, Odisha were quick to go on the counter-attack and earned a corner in the process, took a shot, and the pass ultimately fell at the feet of Roshan Panna assisted by Givson Singh who didn’t fail to score. But it was another goal in another two minutes and Givson Singh got his brace, positioned himself perfectly in the middle, got the pass from the left and put it perfectly at the back of the net.

The Kalinga Warriors saw off the rest of the game without much trouble to seal all three points.