Patna:
Junior Army Football Club (Lucknow) caused an upset today by defeating BSF (Jalandhar) 2-0 in a Pool A league match, while SSB Siliguri were held to a 2-2 draw by the State Bank of Travancore, Kerala in Pool B in the All India Football tournament for the ‘Bihar Cup’ here today.
In the first match, the unheralded army boys from Lucknow struck a goal apiece in either half.
Jullen blasted a scorcher from about 25 yards into the rival net inside two minutes of the match.
Michkel Joshep, Mani Toppo, B K Chettri squandered numerous goal scoring opportunities for the Army boys in the first half, which ended at 1-0.
Royal Lepcha scored the second goal for the Army boys in the 48th minute after taking a pass floated in his direction by Chettri.
A rattled BSF Jalandhar side made valiant effort to come back into the match, but Gurprit Singh, Rakesh Thapa and Hopna Hansda let a number of chances go wasted.
In another thrilling encounter, SSB (Siliguri) and SBT (Kerala) played out a draw with the latter dominating the first half and taking 1-0 lead through Shajeer in the 34th minute.
Md. Aslam scored another goal to increase the tally to 2-0 in the 65th minute for SBT.
SSB showed resilience, putting in two goals within a gap of three minutes in the final 10 minutes of the match.
Star striker Bijeshwar Singh struck in the 80th minute to reduce the margin for SSB, while Nandlal Singh scored the equaliser in 83rd minute from 30 yards.
