The Hindu : Sport / Football : No improvement in quality of matches

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 17, 2004

Sport

Sport - Football

No improvement in quality of matches

By Vijay Lokapally

NEW DELHI, OCT. 16. The quality of matches in the ongoing National football championship for the Santosh Trophy has not risen above mediocrity but managers, some overtly and some covertly, have laid the blame with the state of the turf their teams have been playing on.

"Heavy and demanding," was Delhi coach Sukhpal Singh Bisht's remark at the end of the match at the Ambedkar Stadium.

"Rough at some places," pointed out Punjab coach Jagir Singh after his team won the match at the Nehru Stadium warm-up ground.

The Railways' technical director, Irenio Vaz, made a similar observation at the Thyagaraj Nagar Sports Complex at the conclusion of the match against Bihar here on Saturday. Railways won 3-0 in Cluster III to register its second win.

"I know we have to improve but then I would like to give the boys more time. They have been trying to adjust to different grounds and different bounce," said Vaz in defence of Railways putting up an inconsistent display.

The tournament organising secretary, N.K. Bhatia, had an explanation. "These grounds are not maintained by us and we had made numerous requests to the concerned authorities. We have tried our best. There are lot of factors beyond our control but I must say that the grounds meet the standards of the competition. Better than many grounds we have encountered in the past."

Railways dominates

After a listless half hour, Railways lifted itself in the second half to dominate Bihar and won 3-0 but it will need to work on certain areas in the matches to come.

The Railways midfield took a long time to settle but the defence allowed the Bihar forwards no room. In fact, the Railways goalkeeper Israt Kamal, coming in for an injured Sangram Singh, was hardly tested.

Bihar matched Railways until the moment Kasif Jamal headed in a floater from Poly Cherian in the 30th minute.

Thereafter, Railways gained control of the game and scored two goals in the second half through Gaurav Dutta and Subhasish Roy Choudhury. Dutta found the net with a deft placement while Choudhury beat the goalkeeper with a top-of-the-box drive.

In an insipid match of the same cluster at the same venue, Uttaranchal overcame Chandigarh by a solitary goal — a long ranger by Sunil Chouhury in the 52nd minute.

Easy for U.P.

At the Ambedkar Stadium, Uttar Pradesh scored a 3-0 win against Jharkhand in Cluster IV. The goals came through Karan Singh, Ramesh Rawat and Shamsi Raza.

At the same venue, Andhra Pradesh was in its element against Mizoram, winning 2-0, scoring once in each half in Cluster I. Sayeed Hussain and Mohammad Azeem were the marksmen for Andhra Pradesh. The match ended on a disappointing note for Andhra Pradesh when Sayeed Hussain was shown red card for dissent.

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