Aizawl/CHENNAI: Aizawl FC stunned East Bengal 3-2 after a sublime strike by super-sub Mapuia in the I-League here on Saturday.
Owing to Mapuia’s 83rd minute strike, former champions Aizawl FC finally managed to win their first game of the ongoing league. Mapuia had been on the pitch for just seven minutes before he struck.
In a see-saw encounter that saw the lead swaying both ways, Ivorian Hero of the Match Zikahi Dodoz put the hosts ahead in the 25th minute, before Jobby Justin equalised in the 63rd minute for the visitors.
Spanish defender Borja Gomez put East Bengal ahead in the 70th minute, but his effort was cancelled out three minutes later by Joe Zoherliana.
Finally, Mapuia sealed the issue in his team’s favour with a strike off an assist by Dodoz.
In the end, it turned out to be a combination of Dodoz’ efforts and a couple of Gift Raikhan substitutions which secured the win for Aizawl while for East Bengal, their fate seemed tied to three Lalram Chulova set-pieces, two of which brought them goals while one was disallowed.
Both coaches made a few changes to the starting eleven. Raikhan brought back Gurpreet in goal and played Joe Zoherliana in defence and David in midfield, in place of Govin Singh and Duata respectively.
East Bengal had Ubaid in goal in place of Rakshit Dagar, which Spanish coach Alejandro Menendez might rue in hindsight and got in Chullova and Brandon in place of Samad Ali Mallick and Yami Longwah.
In the other match, table toppers Chennai City FC extended their lead to a massive eight points over their closest rivals after a hard-fought 2-1 win against Manipur’s Neroca FC at the Nehru stadium here on Saturday.
Chennai yet again rode on the exalted performance of their Spanish recruits, with goals from centre-back Roberto Eslava and midfielder Nestor Jesus in either half to register their fifth win in six matches and remain unbeaten.
Neroca got one back from Singham Subhash Singh but it was not enough on the day.
The win takes Chennai to sixteen points from six games at the top while Neroca remained in the sixth position on the table with five points from a similar number of games.
Nestor Jesus, rightly adjudged the Hero of the Match, registered his third goal of the campaign, and with two goals on Saturday, the four Spaniards in the Chennai team have collectively scored 11 of their 15 goals so far.
Both coaches, Akbar Nawas of Chennai and Manuel Fraile of Neroca, made two changes to the starting line-up from the previous game.
For the hosts, Pravitto Raju played in place of Mashoor Shereef while for Neroca, Singham Subash Singh made his way back into the starting eleven at the expense of Paite. (Agencies)
