The Hindu : Sport / Football : Viva edges out Titanium

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 19, 2006

Sport

Sport - Football

Viva edges out Titanium

Principal Correspondent

KOZHIKODE: Viva Kerala entered the final of the Royal Challenge State football league, edging out Travancore Titanium 7-5 via tiebreaker here on Tuesday. The teams were level 2-2 at the end of regulation period.

In the final on Friday, Viva will meet the winner of Wednesday's second semifinal between SBT and KSEB. The young Kochi club thus gets two days' rest after playing two tough games in as many days.

Viva's Nigerian import Baba Thunde had another excellent game, scoring two goals and putting the Titanium defence under tremendous pressure. He has now scored four goals in two successive games.

Baba Thunde scores

Thunde's first goal on Tuesday gave Viva the lead in the 36th minute, as he made no mistake with a penalty kick awarded for a foul on him by Deepu. Two minutes later though, Titanium found the equaliser which the Viva custodian M. Shiju is not going to forget in a hurry. It was his failure to stop the free kick taken by R. Rajesh that allowed Ebin Rose to sneak the ball in. The teams were level 1-1 at half-time.

In the 47th minute, Baba put Viva back in with a low header off a corner kick taken by Denson Devadas.

Jacken Sebastian made it 2-2 with a fine solo effort in the 57th minute; though it has to be said that he received some help from Viva defender Albert, who apparently didn't think too highly of that move and didn't look too keen to stop him.

Tough time

The Viva defence had a tough time in the last 15 minutes or so, as Titanium pressed hard for the elusive winner.

In the shoot-out, the decisive moment came when Titanium's K. Renjith's feeble shot was stopped by the `keeper.

Baba, Arun Appukuttan, Suresh Babu, Shineraj and Denson scored for Viva, as did Abdul Hameed, Deepu and Martin P. Pereira for Titanium.

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