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Instituto thrashes NISA

Principal Correspondent

KANNUR: Instituto Buenos Aires de Futbol, Argentina, already knocked out of the second E.K. Nayanar Memorial Gold Cup football tournament, decided to bow out in style.

The Argentines thrashed North Imphal Sporting Association (NISA) 7-1 at the Muncipal Jawahar Stadium here on Thursday. The massive win, of course, came a bit too late in the day, as Bayelsa United, Nigeria, and Air India have advanced to the semifinals from Group ‘B’.

The young team from Manipur needed to win tonight if it had to entertain any hopes of staying alive, but it was up against a talented side that was determined to put behind its shoddy display against Air India two days ago.

Improved display

If the goalkeeper Marcos Juarez was the main culprit for the 5-1 thrashing in that game, he came up with a vastly-improved display tonight, even making quite a few saves; had he done that against Air India, the most attractive and popular side in the tournament would have stayed on.

Maximiliano Ractoret, the pocket dynamite from Buenos Aires, scored twice in the 51st and 85th minutes and played a significant role in some of the other goals as well.

The other scorers for the victor were skipper Dario Batalla (27th), who was named man-of-the-match, Frederico Rodriguez (40th), Adrian Martinez (44th), Miguel Giles (13th) and Frederico Gati (78th), from the penalty spot. NISA’s only goal came through O. Pritam in the 33rd minute. It, in fact, was an equaliser as the Argentine defence failed to effect an off-side trap. At that stage, NISA was looking capable of putting up a decent fight, but soon the floodgates were opened.

Bad day

It was a bad day for NISA which had to play with 10 men, as Sangkar Singh was sent off towards the end of the opening half after getting his second yellow card. But, even 15 men wouldn’t have been able to stop the attacks of Maximiliano, Batala, Conti and Rodriquez.

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