When goalkeeper S. Sreeju replaced the seasoned Nelson midway through the tiebreaker and made a stunning save, KSEB seemed to have found its saviour.
But a few minutes later, the electricity men from Thiruvananthapuram trooped out a disappointed lot after losing the tiebreaker 3-4 to Sesa. Two players, including their star striker P.K. Anilkumar, shot over under pressure.
The 5-4 victory helped Goan side Sesa march into the quarterfinals of the DDL Sports Bhagath Cup all-India football tournament at the Maharaja’s Stadium here on Tuesday evening.
“That goalkeeper substitute clicked,” said the KSEB coach P.K. Andrews. “But we were unlucky in the end. That’s football.”
Sesa dominated proceedings but the teams were level 1-1 at the end of the regulation period. Lezly Fernandez guided a neat pass from the left from Selwyn Fernandez to give Sesa the lead in the 14th minute while C.K. Vineeth netted the KSEB equaliser with a long-ranger in the 40th minute.
Savio D’Carneiro, Pratish Shirodker, Sidroy Alphonso and Nicolau Colaso scored for Sesa in the tiebreaker while only S. Vinod, Mohammed Rasi and Dhaneesh were successful for Thiruvananthapuram side KSEB.
Source: The Hindu
From the archive. First published on footballkerala.com on Thursday 4 February 2010, restored from the site's 2012 database. Text as originally published.