IMPHAL: Defending champions Minerva Punjab FC and Manipur’s Neroca FC played out an exciting goalless draw in an I-League match at the Khuman Lampak stadium here on Sunday.
The draw denied both the teams a chance to improve their league standings considerably. The home-side dominated possession and created chances, even missed a penalty, but could not get past a solid Minerva defence.
The result meant that Neroca stayed at fourth place in the 12th Hero I-League standings with 15 points from nine games while on the other hand, Minerva Punjab moved up by one spot to be at the sixth after 10 games with 13 points. The game maintained a high tempo from the start and it kept going the same throughout with both the teams displaying an urgency to score.
Neroca, however, outscored the visitors 64-36 in possession, 12-5 in shots taken, 11-2 in corners and 4-2 in the shots on target. While the hosts had fielded an unchanged eleven, Minerva went for as many as seven changes, the crux of them being fielding nine Indian players and just two foreigners in William Opoku and Lancine Toure.
Neroca made their intentions clear from the beginning when in the seventh minute. A Subhash cross from left fell to Katsumi inside the box but his effort went straight to Minerva goalkeeper.
Ghanaian William Opoku then broke away for Minerva in the 16th minute for his first of many chances in the game, and was close to a goal but Eduardo came up with a timely challenge to deny him. Neroca though dominated the half and the combination of Singham Singh and Katsumi Yusa in particular were looking very dangerous for th eoppositions and at times they created almost definite chances only to be opposed strongly by the defenders from Minerva Punjab.
Minerva got the first golden opportunity after the break when a muffed up clearance, this time by Ashok Singh in the Neroca defence, fell invitingly for Prateek Joshi in front of goal. His left footed effort was admirably kicked to safety by a wrong-footed Lalit Thapa in the Neroca goal.
The hosts, however, began to take control again and forayed regularly into the box. Subhash, Sebastian and Katsumi from the left and Malem and an ever overlapping Ashok Singh from the right were creating havoc in the Minerva defence.
To top it all, Australian defensive midfielder Aryn Williams’ interception and distribution was fantastic as has been the case in recent games. Sustained pressure resulted in Manandeep being called out for handball inside the box and Chidi blew the resultant spot kick over the bar in the 77th minute of the game.
The combination of Subhash and Katsumi created one last chance in injury time but the latter’s shot from just outside the box went straight to Minerva keeper Bhaskar Roy. (PTI)
