Gurgaon, Dec 30 (IANS) The youngsters of AIFF XI ended the year on a happy note with a 2-1 win over Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) in the sixth round of the I-league football on a chilly afternoon here Thursday.
The victory was their second at the Tau Devi Lal Stadium and they moved to the 10th spot from 12th with seven points while HAL slipped two places to the ninth spot with seven points. HAL stayed ahead on the basis of better goal difference.
Malswam Fela headed Tirthankar Sarkar’s corner kick to give AIFF XI the lead in the 34th minute and Bikramjit Singh’s curling flag-kick doubled the lead in the 53rd minute. HAL pulled one back in the 88th minute with R.C. Prakash’s penalty kick after Jagtar Singh committed a handball.
The scoreline, however, doesn’t reflect AIFF XI’s dominance in the match as they toyed with the HAL defence and could have won by a bigger margin that would have improved their goal difference in the cramped mid-table.
Though AIFF XI have improved with every match, but miss-passes remain a problem for the Desmond Bulpin coached team. After some dressing down by the coach during the break, they put up a good show in the second half.
For the Bangalore team it was another pedestrian performance as they struggled to match the pace and agility of AIFF XI, comprising mostly under-19 boys.
Their defence came under relentless pressure from Fela and Jeje Lalpeklua, who combined well to create the chances, and the first chance came their way in the fifth minute, but Fela’s shot went wide by a whisker. Fela, who was adjudged as the Man of the Match, also missed a penalty after he was brought down in the box by Liliyan Kenneth in the 24th minute.
HAL’s Nepalese left-back Rohit Chand did well to cut some of the moves, but didn’t get any support from the other flank. The mid-field also wore a tattered look and they hardly created any move against AIFF XI.
Bulpin was happy with the team’s performance in the second half, but admitted that conceding goals in the last minute seems to be a problem.
‘My boys have become over confident with the win. That was clearly showing in the last 10 minutes, when we dropped guard. I have to sort this out. There were also several miss-passes, but we have improved in that area,’ said Blupin.
The Englishman, however, was happy with his boys scoring goals from set-pieces.
‘We have 55 percent conversion rate from set-pieces and today the boys were exceptional. We have been practicing set-pieces a lot and that is an area where we have the maximum chances to score and also to concede goals,’ he said.
