Meitei magic helps HASC put it past Mumbai

Aircraftmen move up to eighth on table

The teenager, who scored the winner for Hindustan Aeronautics Sports Club in their 1-0 win over ONGC,  came to the fore once again as he finished a nicely crafted move in the 72nd minute to give his team a 1-0 victory over Mumbai FC in the I-League here at the Sree Kanteerava stadium on Sunday.

The Aircraftmen, who now have nineteen points from 16 matches, after putting in an impressive performance to extend their unbeaten run at home to four games and jump up one place to eighth in the standings. Mumbai FC stayed fifth with 24 points from 15 games.

“I’m extremely satisfied with our game today. We went out there and did really well and truly deserved to get the three points. The relegation fears, with this win are slowly easing now,” M Muralidharan, HASC manager said.

The match started with HASC on the front foot and A Hamza missing three glorious chances.

The first one came off a long ball, which the Nigerian controlled and shot from just outside the box, the ’keeper Ishant Debnath making a decent stop.

Of the resulting corner, whipped in by Xavier Vijay Kumar, Hamza found himself unmarked at the far post but missed a sitter of a header from three yards out. The striker could have had a hattrick when some good work again from Xavier saw the Nigerian in space inside the box, but his strike could only find the goalkeeper.

Mumbai, who were slow off the blocks, started getting into their game when they created a couple of good chances, but either poor finishing or a little slice of luck for the opposing side saw the chances go unutilised.

Local boy Deepak Prakash, who had big support at the ground, was largely ineffective in his first I-League start, eventually being substituted early in the second half. Mumbai for their nice short-passing game, failed in the final third, with the suspect pitch adding to their inability to find the final ball.

“I thought we played badly today. Our finishing was just not upto the mark. But full credit to HASC, they played well and deserved their win, Henry Picardo, Mumbai manager said.

HASC, who were controlling the proceedings right through the second half, got their deserved winner when Ankit Sharma — who came on for Hamza — headed a Xavier cross from the left to Meitei just inside the penalty area. Meitei struck the ball into the bottom left corner to send the sparse crowd into delirium, taking HASC a step closer to safety.