Big guns Mahendra Police Club (MPC) and Tribhuvan Army Club (TAC) suffered big blows in their championship run today as MPC locked horns against Friends Club (FC) 0-0 and minnow Boys Union Club (BUC) handed TAC a bitter 2-1 defeat while another big gun Nabil Three Star Club (NTSC) took advantage and thrashed Boudha Football Club (BFC) 6-0 to go atop the league standings in the ANFA Martyrs’ Memorial “A” Division League Football Tournament matches played today.
In the BUC versus TAC match, Suman Shrestha drew first blood for Tripureswore based BUC in the 25th minute. The joy was short-lived as lanky Ram Kumar Biswash restored parity for TAC in the 29th minute. However, Hari Thakuri, a former NRT player, found the net after a two years gap in the 40th minute. The lemon break couldn’t refresh the Army men and the scoreline remained the same till the end of regulation.
The win saw BUC moving up to a safer zone leaving Machhindra FC, Mahabir Club and Boudha FC in the relegation dilemma. “The defeat was a big shock for us,” TAC coach Kishor KC told reporters while happy BUC coach Rajendra KC poured his ecstasy saying, “All credit goes to my boys and they made me ecstatic.”
In the MPC versus FC game, the injury hit police team couldn’t threaten FC’s den and were reluctant to create goal-scoring chances. Friends Club played well to end the game goalless, but also did not create any goal scoring chances.
“The draw frustrated us,” MPC coach Yogambar Suwal told reporters at the post match conference. FC coach Siddi Bynjankar was pleased with the results. “Boys labored hard to continue the same results as the first leg, which also ended 0-0”.
Meanwhile, defending champions Nabil Three Star Club took advantage to get back on top of the league standings with a 6-0 thrashing of tail ender BFC.
Pradeep Maharjan, Bijaya Gurung and Bishan Gauchan netted apiece in the first half. After the re-start, NTSC was again aggressive and Surendra Tamang found the net twice in the 48th and 73rd minute while Pralaya Rajbhandari scored in the 78th minute.
“We played as per our expectations but we are happy with the other bigwigs going down,” NTSC president Mrigendra Mishra told reporters. BFC asst. coach Drubha Gurung said, “The result has pressed us into deep meditation to survive the relegation zone.”
Mrigendra now finds his team atop with 46 points, one ahead of MPC.
In the meantime, ANFA has to re-scheduled the fixtures of the league for tomorrow due to the political parties call for a Nepal bandh. On Friday, four matches will be played at two venues seeing Nabil Three Star Club taking on Machhindra FC, Tribhuvan Army against Mahabir, NRT against BBC and RCT against Friends Club.