I-League: Tense derby at Kalyani ends all square between United SC and Mohammedan Sporting

In a relegation battle, United SC and Mohammedan Sporting Club played out a one-all draw at the Kalyani Municipal Stadium on Saturday afternoon.

After the final whistle, United SC stay in 10th spot in the table with 22 points from 21 matches, while Mohammedan Sporting remain bottom of the table with 18 points from 20 matches.

United SC made a couple of changes for their starting eleven as Lalkamal Bhowmick and Tapan Maity were brought in place of Souvik Chakraborty and Jayanta Sen.

Abhijit Das, the United SC custodian just started off where he left off last week. The Black Panthers had to toil hard to get past him. A sudden collision with Mohammedan Sporting medio Monirul halted the game. Everybody was aghast while Monirul lost his sense after the abrupt collision, the medical personnels took both of them to the nearest hospital. According to the latest update from the medical department, Abhijit is severely injured his jaw, likely to be broken; while Monirul is much better now after preliminary medication.

Both the teams started playing to snatch the three points from this encounter. After successive attacks, the Nigerian midfielder Penn Orji finally got the better of United SC substitute keeper Jayanta Pal in the 44th minute, who incidentally had come on in the on 35th minute after Abhijit’s collision with Monirul.

Penn Orji hammered the ball from the middle of the box in the nets in the 44th minute. But the Mohammedan Sporting joy was short-lived as Biswajit Biswas whacked the ball into the back of the net in first half injury-time. Biswajit received a cross from Eric Brown and scored past Luis Xavier Barreto in the Mohammedan Sporting goal.

Both the teams became cautious after the break. They were both working to hold onto their possession with both the goalkeepers becoming mere spectators. In the 54th minute Mohammedan Sporting missed a glorious opportunity as Orji found Israil Gurung who missed the target from five yards out, much to the disappointment of his team.

United SC were content to defend in numbers and play on the counter attacks but suffered a big blow when Lalkamal was shown red after getting booked for the second time in the game. With the match entering the last quarter, a sudden through from Eric Brown found Waheed Adenkule just outside the box, but Waheed squandered arguably the easiest chance of the match, which would have snatched the three points for the purple brigade.

Eric Brown was the pick of the players for the hosts as they searched for an improbable win. The Liberian went on a solo run down the middle and went past a few defenders before he was brought down by Luciano Sabrosa who earned himself a booking. The last chance of the match fell to Tapan Maity, whose long-ranger hit the crossbar.

In the end United SC Bello Rasaq was awarded the Man of The Match award for his splendid performance throughout the 90 minutes, while he played the pivotal role to keep dangerman Josimar calm.