Team Herald
VASCO: Indian Arrows who are often accused of conceding late goals launched an extraordinary fight-back to win 2-1 against Churchill Brothers in their Hero I-League encounter at the Tilak Maidan, on Saturday.
The Arrows were trailing 1-0 till the 90th minute after an 11th-minute strike from Dawda Ceesay and were staring at another defeat until substitute Abhijit Sarkar scored two injury time goals to turn the game upside down.
Following the stupendous win over high-flying Churchill Brothers FC Goa, that too, at their stomping ground Tilak Maidan takes the young Turks to the eighth spot with 14 points from 15 matches whereas the Red Machines are positioned one step up having amassed 16 points from 13.
Nicholas Fernandes beat Asish Rai and worked his way to the by-line before floating a ball into the far post. Dawda Ceesay calmly nodded the ball past Arrows keeper Prabhusukhan Gill to make it 1-0 in the 11th minute.
There were no notable actions other than Ceesay’s goal in the first-half.
After the changeover, Churchill Brothers’ Eldor Hussein rattled the crossbar from a free-kick in the 54th minute.
Just when Churchill felt the game was won, Boris Singh fought off the challenge of Eldor Hussein and ran down the right flank before picking out Sarkar who slid in and put the ball past Kithan.
Following a quick flurry of passes amongst Deepak Tangri and Edmund Lalrindika, finally, it landed onto Abhijit Sarkar, who was left unmarked inside the box, to curl the ball into the net as the spectators went into raptures.
Elsewhere, NEROCA FC and Aizawl FC shared the spoils in a tightly contested affair at the Khuman Lampak Main Stadium.
Both sides failed to finish off chances but had plenty of promising moments throughout the game, Dodoz’s right-footed shot in the second minute of added time was wide of the target as the referee brought the engaging affair to a close.
