Pailan Arrows 0-0 Salgaocar SC: The defending champions stutter at the Salt Lake

Salgaocar SC find themselves ten points adrift Dempo SC, the league leaders, as they were held to a goalless draw by Pailan Arrows at the Salt Lake Stadium, Kolkata.

While the result wouldn’t matter much to the Arrows, who have the safety not being relegated, Salgaocar find their chances to defend their title dented considerably given the disappointing result for them.

The Kolkata side started with Ravi Kumar in between the sticks instead of Naveen Kumar while Bencherifa was without the services of Luciano Sobrosa and handed Dinesh Singh a rare start at the back.

The two sides made a scrappy start to the match and it seemed that the trend would change as the match progresses. The wait grew longer and longer and longer and neither team were able to establish themselves in the first half as chances were scarce to come by.

Ball was given away cheaply and there wasn’t any real goal threat for either of the goalkeepers to do much.

The first move of note came in the 21^st minute when Ryuiji Sueoka and Francis Fernandes combined with the former pulling back the ball for Ishfaq Ahmed but Ravi Kumar did well to avert the danger.

Pailan were content to sit back and one does expect a better style and tactics from a side which shall form the crux of the Indian national team in the year to 2015 with the aim to make it into the 2018 World Cup.

After the break, there wasn’t much change shown by either of the two sides as Salgaocar did enjoy the better possession but couldn’t come up with the goods against a physical side who had kept almost all their players behind the ball.

The two coaches changed the personnel but that didn’t help the matters either. The free-kicks and corner-kicks were cleared or wasted as there was no creative spark shown by the teams to score a goal.

The first shot on goal came in the 89^th minute when Sueoka found substitute Gilbert Oliveira inside the box whose shot was punched by the Arrows custodian.

However in the fourth minute of the injury time, Pailan Arrows could have seized their first three points of the season as Ajay Singh was almost through on goal with Karanjit Singh saving the away side from an embarrassment.

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