GFC v/ BWFC, 14th October 2020 (12.30 PM) , YBK Stadium.
Weather: Clear Skies, Sunny, Hot and Humid.
The points table of the I-League Qualifiers looks trembling as Bhawanipore FC bags their second win on a 1 – 2 scoreline today on match day 5 and are tied up with Mohammedan SC in the table.
The teams lined-up as follows:
Garhwal Football Club: Sayak Barai (GK), Pratik Lama, Neeraj Bhandari, Rahul Baishnab Das, Gagandeep Singh Ghattaura, Mahip Adhikari, Muhammad Shafeer PM, Dahir Bala Alhassan (C), Gaurav Rawat, Suman Sarkar, Ekomobong Victor Philip.
Substitutes: Afdal Varikkodan, Nirmal Singh Bisht, Nitin Bhandari, Uttam Rai, Amit Biswas (GK), Ronald Singh Shaikhom, Amey Bhatkal, Vinodkumar Chandrakishor Pandey, Gursimrat Singh, Nikhil Vijay Pal.
Bhawanipore FC: Shilton Paul (GK) (C), Kinshuk Debnath, Arijit Bagui, Anup Theres Raj, Enjamul Hoque, Monotosh Chakladar, Yumnam Gopi Singh, Subhankar Das, Altamash Sayed, Pankaj Moula, Philip Adjah Tettey-Narh.Substitutes: Dibyendu Sarkar (GK), Avinabo Bag, Faisal Ali, Debanna Chakraborty, Monoronjan Singh, Jiten Murmu, Supriya Pandit, Prosenjit Paul, Yumkhaibam Jiteshwor Singh, Bikramjit Singh.
As the whistle blew, GFC started off holding the ball and keeping possession trying to bite off the time as it was a do or die match for them while BWFC was constantly trying to press them and get a breakthrough for a counter attack.GFC absent-mindedly gave away their possession to the BWFC goalkeeper in the early minutes and through a throw ball down the flank Arijit Bagui gave a long ball forward and the talisman Philip Adjah Tettey-Narh beat the offside trap effortlessly and scored a beautiful goal at the 7th minute due to what seemed to be a miscommunication in the Garhwal defence.
Without further ado, GFC kicked off keeping the possession and evidently working on their counter attack. The audience got to witness a box-to-box counter attacking play for quite a long time with the possession tilting a bit towards Garhwal’s side. At the 12th minute, P. Ekomobong Victor was substituted by Afdal Varikkodan.
GFC won a free kick in the 17th minute which was parried away by Shilton Paul with Garhwal continuously trying to score from inside the box which was denied by the BWFC defence and built-up another breathtaking counter attack in which Gopi Singh missed the post with more than a few inches.
At the 33rd minute, the BWFC defender Enjamul Hoque found himself getting a yellow card where he tried to stop the attack of the Garhwal side and raised the leg resulting in a clumsy challenge which in turn hurt the GFC forward Afdal a bit from right outside the box. GFC failed to convert the free kick and the corner that followed into a goal. And another, off the ball, clumsy challenge by Kinshuk Debnath gave himself a yellow card in the 38th minute of the match.
In no time, with all the exhilarating box-to-box counter attacking, the match saw itself reaching the half time with each of the teams making a substitution wherein Suman Sankar was replaced by Ronald Singh Shaikhom for the GFC side and Supriya Pandit substituted Gopi Singh for the BWFC side. Garhwal Football Club 0 – 1 Bhawanipore FC.
Right after the kickoff of the second half, Garhwal as usual kept their possession and worked on their counter attacks evidently upping their ante. As the match was reaching the 50th minute, GFC struggled to keep control of the ball and lost their possession to BWFC and Anup Theres Raj dribbled the ball towards the right side of the GFC post and gave a sublime cross to Pankaj Moula who executed his job beautifully and gave the BWFC side the insurance goal and a 2 goal lead at the 50th minute.
As the match proceeded, the BWFC side made 3 more substitutions, two at the 53rd minute and one at the 58th minute, which saw Jiten Murmu replacing the goalscorer Pankaj Moula, Jiteshwor Singh replacing Altamash Sayed and Faisal Ali replacing the assist provider Anup Raj respectively.
This was followed by two substitutions in the GFC side at the 62nd minute with Nikhil Vijay Pal and Uttam Rai substituting Muhammed Shafeer and Pratik Lama respectively.
At the 73rd minute, a challenge by Ronald Singh Shaikhom on Supriya Pandit found himself getting a yellow card right outside the box at a very crucial position but Subhankar Das took the free kick and shot it way away from the goal post. The GFC side worked on the counter attack as soon as the match resumed and reached the BWFC box, had several back to back chances which failed but the last one with Rahul Das’s exquisite assist, Afdal Varikkodan bagged a much needed goal and brought down the margin of the scoreline by one goal at the 78th minute.
Followed by this, GFC worked hard on turning the tides but the match ended on the scoreline GFC 1 – 2 BWFC with Nitin Bhandari replacing Gaurav Rawat and Afdal Varikkodan getting himself a yellow card during the injury time.
Match stats:
Possession (GFC): 61% – Possession (BWFC): 39%
Shots (GFC): 17 – Shots (BWFC): 16
Shots on target (GFC): 5 – Shots on target (BWFC): 4
Fouls (GFC): 11 – Fouls (BWFC): 13
Yellow cards (GFC): 2 – Yellow cards (BWFC): 2
Match officiated by – Raktim Saha, Nasar PA Vallykaparambil, Rinkahao Vashum, Santosh Kumar Bhaskaran, Muringothumalil.