West Bengal escaped in the last minute as Tamil Nadu held them to a 1-1 draw in the quarterfinal match of the 63rd National football championship for Santosh trophy at, Nehru Stadium on Tuesday. Tamil Nadu played an aggressive game right from the start and were reduced to 10-men as N Mohanraj pocketed second yellow card in the first twenty minutes of the game. But despite being reduced to 10-men they played a composed game.
Hosts though got couple of chances early on but their shots were off target. Bengal had the chance to draw first blood in the 16th minute but Tarif Ahmed shot from inside the box was not powerful enough to pose a threat for Tamil Nadu custodian VP Sathish Kumar.
In the 29th minute Snehashish Chakrbaorthy floated the ball inside box and an unmarked Gautam Thakur headed the ball in but was adjudged offside. With couple of shots taken at their goal Tamil Nadu pulled up their socks and in the 40th minute they took the lead when Riju scored.
It was gifted goal as Pradeep lofted the ball from inside the box and Bengal custodian Subhashis Roy Choudhury in an attempt to save it came forward but was left stranded and Riju tapped in the ball to give his team a 1-0 lead.
Three minutes later Bengal had a chance to score the equalizer but Gouranga Biswas failed to get the ball past Satish Kumar and the match entered into the lemon break with Tamil Nadu leading by a solitary goal.
The second half was no different as Tamil Nadu had the better ball possession and were better composed. Bengal outfit tried hard to score the equalizer but their strikers were not effective enough and their flanks hardly created any chances.
In the 73rd minute Gouranga Biswas had another chance but Satish Kumar punched the striker’s header to safety to deny Bengal from scoring. Bengal were awarded for their hardwork as Lalanpuia headed the ball in the injury time to defy Tamil Nadu from pocketing three points.
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Tuesday 2 June 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.