The Hindu : Sport : Air-India and HAL play out a goalless draw

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 10, 2005

Sport

Sport

Air-India and HAL play out a goalless draw

Special Correspondent

Unbeaten teams prefer to play it safe

FUTILE ATTEMPT: Dayananda (left) of HAL and Santa Singh of Air-India fight for possession. - Photo: Vino John

CHENNAI: The two unbeaten teams, Air-India (Mumbai) and HAL (Bangalore) were only eager to keep their slates clean and succeeded by splitting points with a goalless draw in a Group `A' match of the NFL second division at the Nehru stadium on Monday. With seven points each from three matches both continue to top the table.

The oppressive weather conditions did not make things easy for the players but the determined youngsters put their best foot forward, deciding not to surrender even an inch and trying every trick in the trade (including faking falls in the danger zone!). For all this, chances were frittered away, each team trying to outdo the other in this.

The Bangalore outfit is known for its fast start and in full stride the lanky Xavier Vijaykumar can be more than a handful. After signalling his intent quite early, Vijaykumar nearly brought cheers to his camp with a superb volley off a Rajendra Prasad cross from the far side.

An alert goalkeeper Mondal made the collection look simple but the swing on the ball could have made things tricky. Minutes later another HAL sortie saw Mondal charging out and succeeding in beating Vijaykumar to the ball but he let the sphere slip off his grasp. Satish (Jr.) was in a handy position to exploit an open cage but defender Napolean Singh read him fast, ran around and effected a great save.

With Air-India too designing moves, a key component in this was the gigantic throw-ins by substitute Uttam Singh, there were enough skirmishes at the HAL goal area too. Narendra Meetei, Noel Fernandes and Anthony Fernandes kept hovering around for the `kill'. The defence held until the 72nd minute when an Anthony Fernandes' cross saw Meetei launching for the regulation header but the ball ballooned over much to the disbelief of all. Ten minutes later another of Anthony's spadework saw Meetei's right-footer find a defender's leg and miss the rectangle with the goalkeeper off his charge.

The pace was now hectic as minutes ticked away and during the fag end it was HAL which wasted a gilt-edged opportunity when Vijaykumar, with just goalkeeper Ekka to negotiate, failed. Action kept switching ends but a goal proved elusive.

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