Titanium crashed out of the Federation Cup South Zone Qualifiers as H.A.L Bangalore drubbed them 3-0 score to qualify for the finals against SBT on 3rd December.
HAL foreign recruit Fredrick Okwagbe (25'), and Sathish Kumar (65' and 87') played the spoilsport for Titanium, who tried to score desperately to at least decrease the lead. Though both teams had plenty of possession, HAL outplayed the Titanium players in converting the opportunities they had into goals.
Most of the time the game was concentrated on the middle of the park as midfielders from both teams played crucial roles in defending and keeping the possession. The first chance of HAL came in the 5th minute as a header from Okwagbe just missed the cross bar leaving the goalie and defenders bewildered with the fast move.
However, Owkagbe's second try in the 25th minute found the way through and Titanium were punished for allowing Rajendra Prasad to freely move in the right flank of the box. Owkagbe did not give any room for a mistake when he headed the well-furnished cross of Rajendra Prasad.
Until the half time whistle both teams tried their best to score with lots of counter attacks but strikers could not pass through the defenders who displayed staunch tackling to stop them.
The second half started with more combined efforts from Titanium's Sabir and Cleetus but ended up in vain as HAL's defender and another foreign recruit Joseph Femiadeola displayed his best to stop Titanium players' crosses. Joseph Femiadeola's man-marking was superb and experienced former Kerala State striker T Usman could not get past him on several counts.
Former India camper and HAL skipper Xavier Vijayakumar controlled the midfield and created several chances for his team-mates. He was ably supported in the middle by former junior India camper Bimal Minz. But the finishing upfront was not upto the mark and Titanium continued to flood the HAL half.
But against the game's momentum, in the 65th minute Sathish Kumar Jr. nicely controlled a through ball from the deep midfield and lobbed it swiftly to befuddle the experienced Titanium custodian KT Navas. Later on, the game changed and HAL kept the possession for most of the time and in the 87th minute, Sathish again scored from a chaos in the box to nail the future of Titanium in the tournament.
Teams
Titanium
Navas (GK), Sabir, Satheesh, Shabeer (C), Tinson Justin, Cleetus, Byju, Ebin Rose, Tomy Antony, Usman, Sukun Kumar.
Substitutes - Joby Joseph, Fatheen, Deepu, Abdul Hameed, Prasanth Simon, Dilgith, Dinraj Kumar.
Coach - Rajeev Kumar M
HAL
Amar Deb, Ricky Joy, Jai Kumar, Joseph Femiadeola, Bimal Minz, Sathish Kumar Jr., Murali J, Jotin Singh, Rajendra Prasad, Xavier Vijay Kumar (C), Fredrick Okwagbe.
Substitutes - Nikhil C Bernard, Naveen Babu. M, Deepak K, Thamodharan, Karthigeyan, Srikanth, Sathish Kumar Sr.
Coach - Muralidharan
Score
Titanium - 0 3 - HAL
Fredrick Okwagbe (25)
Sathish Kumar Jr. (65), (87)
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Tuesday 1 December 2009, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.