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In what was widely believed to be the group of death is now being coined the group of resuscitation, as Sporting Clube de Goa gets ready to lock horns with Rangdajied United FC, in a final round match of Group B in the 35th Federation Cup on Tuesday. In the other exciting encounter, Bengaluru FC takes on East Bengal Club. All four teams still have a chance of progressing to the semifinals.
After two matches, Bengaluru FC is currently leading the table with four points, followed by Sporting Goa with three, Rangdajied United has two and East Bengal has a solitary point.
After just 66 minutes into their first group game, it looked like Sporting Goa breathed their last breath when they were trailing by four goals to Bengaluru F. But then a rare specimen called ‘team spirit’ threatened to manifest and in the last 16 minutes Sporting Goa clawed back three goals through Boima Jerry Karpeh and substitutes Beevan D’Mello and Victorino Fernandes. Despite Bengaluru FC eventually winning 5-3, the Goan ‘team spirit’ was carefully bottled and taken back to the training ground for further analysis.
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In their next match, Oscar Bruzon’s men took an early lead through Victorino Fernandes, but in the second session East Bengal pegged them back to 1-1 and elimination from the tournament looked inevitable. It was then left to ‘team spirit’ once again to remedy the situation as Beevan D’Mello popped up for the Flaming Oranje to score the winning goal in the final five minutes.
Rangdajied United can also subscribe to that ‘team spirit’, as they have quietly stayed unbeaten in the tournament so far with a 1-1 draw against East Bengal, followed up with a similar 1-1 result against Bengaluru FC, when they managed to equalize in the last ten minutes to keep their campaign hopes alive.
The Sporting Clube de Goa vs Rangdajied United game is set to kickoff at 5pm, while the Bengaluru FC game against East Bengal Club is scheduled to follow at the same venue at 7.30pm.
Since all four teams are still in the race to qualify for the semifinals, Sporting Clube de Goa has requested the organizers to host the matches simultaneously in the spirit of fair play, but that is not possible due to logistics.
