57th CC Meet: Neroca ride on Satish's hattrick to enter semis packing off SSU
Source: The Sangai Express
Imphal, January 05 2014:
NEROCA, Shangakpham rode on a brilliant hattrick from Kh Satish downing a spirited SSU, Singjamei and take one more step to defend their title.
The scoreline of 3-0 in favour of NEROCA however did not really reflect the overall game as the SSU players too had some gilt edged changes that went abegging.
While SSU relied on power game with long passes, it was the well co-ordinated NEROCA team which came out tops.
With both teams adopting the 4-4-2 format, there was plenty of action from both sides and the two teams matched each other move for move till the 47th minute (additional time of two minutes) in the first half, when NEROCA grabbed the lead.
The goal came from a move down the left flank with Chakravarty doing the leg work and taking the ball into the territory of SSU.
Creating enough space for himself he floated a well measured cross into the goal mouth of SSU, where a well positioned Kh Satish had little problem in tapping the ball home, much to the delight of the NEROCA fans who had turned up in droves.
Lemon break was taken with NEROCA in the lead.
The team from Singjamei too had its fair chances of finding the net as early as the 40th minute of the game with the trio of Devan, L Gogocha and Sahidur, combining well to take the ball into the danger zone of NEROCA.
Breaching the defence of NEROCA, Devan unleashed a powerful shot from the top of the penalty box in the 40th minute, but the ball hit the bar and went out of play.
The second goal for NEROCA came in the 51st minute of the second half, when midfielder L Gouro managed to hoodwink a couple of defenders and took the ball into the far left.
From there he sent an aerial pass into the penalty area of SSU.
The ball found M Deepak, who headed the ball towards a well placed Kh Satish, who managed to out jump the defenders of SSU and headed home the ball, to score the second goal.
Undaunted by the two goals deficit, SSU went on the offensive and repeatedly raided the citadel of NEROCA.
In the 75th minute SSU had a good chance to reduce the margin when Imran Khan shot towards the goal only for a NEROCA defender to clear the ball.
Kh Satish was at it again when he scored in the 89th minute from pass from substitute M Tyson to wrap up the game.