Kolkata: Indian Arrows began their I-League campaign with a convincing 3-0 victory over Chennai City at the Goa Medical College Athletic stadium on Wednesday. U-17 Stars Aniket Jadhav scored a brace, while Boris Singh added a last minute goal to bring home a thumping 3 points, in their opening match of the season.
In what was a surprising move, coach Luis Norton de Matos started with 10 U-17 players, including goalkeeper Dheeraj Singh as striker Edmund Lalrindika became the only U-19 player to be named in the starting line-up.
As expected, it was the away team who started well and dominated the first 20 minutes, continuously penetrating into the opposition box but poor finishing let them down. French striker Jean Joachim, who had been threatening all evening got the best chance to give his side the lead after receiving a clever pass from Pradeep, but placed his shot wide from six-yards. The Arrows however made most of their first proper chance, taking a 1-0 lead. Aniket Jadhav’s fiery shot from the edge of the box landed inside the net after a Suresh Wangjam cross had found him.
The home side could have well got a second goal twice in the next few minutes but Edmund who anchored the attacks missed both the glaring chances. The first chance, a chipped shot beat both the goalkeeper and the custodian, while the woodwork came to the rescue, in the second.
Joachim, who had missed a glorious opportunity in the opening few minutes got another chance to redeem himself, just before the end of the first-half, but failed to beat Arrows custodian Dheeraj on an one-on-one situation.
The away side started the second half brightly keeping more of the ball and nearly came to equalising in the 52nd minute, when Mohanraj’s cross found Massoor Thangalakath in the box, the tall defender however headed wide, as Chennai endured a frustrating evening in Goa.
Meanwhile, Indian Arrows doubled their lead in the 58th minute once again through striker Jadhav. Edmund made a great run in the box cutting past the defenders as well as the Chennai custodian before making a cut-back to Jadhav, who shot into an open net to make it 2-0 for the I-League debutants.
Down by two goals, Chenmai made some swift attacks but their fishing as it had been all evening let them down, with striker Joachim the main culprit of missing some easy chances. Indian Arrows should have made it 3-0 in the 62nd minute, when an inch-perfect cross from Suresh found Edmund, but the U-19 star failed to find the back of the net.
Nonetheless, The youth side did have their third goal in the final minute when Boris Singh’s curled shot from outside the box found the net to bring an end to what was a great start in the league, for the future stars of Indian Football.