City Club trounce Indian Navy

Local favourites City Club trounced Indian Navy 3-0 in a pre-quarter-final league match of the Durand Cup football tournament, in Delhi, on Sunday.

Earlier, in a Group II match, a goal in the dying moments of the game by Cassius Owino enabled Indian National Club to hold Tarun Sangha to a 1-1 draw.

Both Indian Navy and Tarun Sangha are out of the tournament. Navy had lost their first match 0-4 against Border Security Force while Army XI had drubbed Tarun Sangha 6-0 on Saturday.

Indian National and City Club will have to register outright victories over Army XI and BSF respectively on Monday to make it to the quarter-final league. Drawn matches will see through Army and BSF because of better goal averages.

In a slow paced match, City Club led 1-0 at half time. Sunil Chettri put the local club ahead in the 22nd minute.

The way navy men played the match, it looked as if they were just going through the motion of completing the formalities.

Afroz Ahmed increased the lead for City Club in 63rd minute and Shyam Kumar completed the tally in the 82nd minute.

In the first match of the day, Indian National snatched a draw from the jaws of defeat when their Nigerian import Cassisus Owino scored the equaliser few seconds before the final hooter.

Tarun Sangha thus squandered a good chance to win. This young side, had performed impressively in the qualifier but in the pre-quarter-final league disappointed their fans.

After playing a goalless first session, Tarun Sangha took the lead through Suklal Murmu in the 85 minute. However, they could not hold on to the lead for the last 5 minutes as Indian National equalised through Owino.

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