Rangdajied United hold defending champions to a draw

Churchill Brothers failed to register all three points

The Rangdajied United FC versus Churchill Brothers SC encounter at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Shillong on Thursday ended with a 1-1 draw. Team Rangdajied is happy with the result but the happiest of all were the crowds, who were treated with an exciting game of football.

The Rangdajied United skipper Eugeneson Lyngdoh gave the home team a lead in the 25th minute just to be cancelled out two minutes later by Balwant Singh.

Booming with confidence, the host were right into business, creating two dangerous chances within the first two minutes. First captain Eugeneson Lyngdoh’s freekick almost beat Arindam Bhattachary, who had to stretched full length to keep the ball out for a corner.

The ensuing corner by Timothy Lugun was again dangerously headed by David Ngaihte which was deflected off for the 2nd corner.

Keeping the pressure on, the home team came close to scoring again in the 9th minute, when a melee inside the box gave Restomwell a chance to have a sneak at the goal. But Arindam came to his team’s rescue again.

Just two minutes later, David Ngaihte, the livewire on the team, had another go at the goal when he blasted in a powerful right footer that just missed the right post by an inch. Just a minute later, the Man of the Match, Eugeneson Lyngdoh created space for Sandesh Gadkari to run down the field. Sandesh passed the ball to Restomwell Khriam to the right, whose cross was brilliantly collected by the Churchill custodian.

With crowds continuing to pour in and floodlights slowly taking over, the match became more lively and fast, much to the delight of the crowd, who came in numbers, after the Rangdajied coach Santosh Kashyap had appealed to them on Wednesday.

Churchill however were threatening occasionally. In one such instance, they stitched together series of passes before Hugo took a shot from just outside the box to be comfortably collected by Surjay Pariyar.

But the crowd burst into joy in the 25 minute when Eugeneson blast the ball past the Churchill keeper from inside the box to rattle the side netting. The joy however, was short live as Churchill were lucky to level the scoring through Balwant Singh two minutes later off a freekick by Hugo.

The match went into the lemon-break with the score board reading 1-1.

Rangdajied once again began the 2nd half with a bang, with David Ngaihte proving to be a thorn for the Goan defenders. In one solo effort, Ngaihte dribbled past three defenders from the left wing to just outside the box, before his right footed shot, went whistling past the woodwork.

The crowds had not settled down yet, but David had another go at the goal in the 52nd minute from the 25 yards. The ball hit the right post to bounce back into play, which was comfortably cleared by the Churchill defenders. Uffff..was the only sound heard, as the crowd could just not believed what happened.

Three minutes later, Churchill got a freekick from the danger area. Hugo took the shot past the wall and the ball dangerously dipped but just to hit the crossbar as it went out of play.

Churchill there after created few more scoring chances, courtesy the brilliance of Hugo and Hammed, but they just couldn’t beat the Rangdajied custodian, who had a good day in the office.

In the 78th minute, the visitors played some brilliant one touch pass from the centre of the field to the box but failed to do what matters the most, score.

With time running out, RUFC pressed harder for the deserving winner. Ngaihte, once again came close to scoring what could be the winner, when his left footed shot from inside the box hit the post and went out of play.

The game ended 1-1 as the happy Rangdajied team exchanged greetings with each other and remained on the field for long time, thanking the fans and well wishers. Rangdajied now have two points from four outings and remained unbeaten at home.