Bengaluru FC overcome gritty Army Green to enter semis

KOLKATA: Bengaluru FC (BFC) came from behind to beat Army Green 3-2 in the final quarter-final encounter of the 130th Durand Cup at the Vivekananda Yuba Bharati Krirangan (VYBK) on Saturday and set up a last-four clash with FC Goa on Wednesday.

Wungngayam Muirang, Leon Augustine, and Namgyal Bhutia struck for BFC while Lallawmkima and Vibin T. V. struck for the Greens, both incidentally via penalties.

Army Green created pressure early on and were rewarded for that as Lallawmkima scored from the spot in the 9th minute to give them the lead.

However, the Naushad Moosa-coached BFC did not take long to bounce back as Muirang scored the equalizer in the 20th minute, courtesy of a magical free-kick that curled into the back of the net, giving Green's keeper Sarath no chance whatsoever.

Bengaluru played an attacking game post that and created quite a few chances but failed to convert any of them in the first half.

However, they did not take long to go ahead in the second session as Leon Augustine scored the second goal for his team just minutes after the restart.

Bhutia then scored the third just before the three-quarter hour mark to give the Blues a comfortable two-goal cushion.

Dip Majumdar and Deepak Singh did create some chances and put pressure on the Bengaluru goal but the Blues defence did well to keep the lead intact.

In the last few minutes, Army Green pulled one back, through another spot-kick but it was all over by then. IANS

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