Dempo plays draw with Mahindra, stays on top

Dec 29:  Defending champion and table-toppers Dempo SC squandered home advantage as they were held 1-1 draw by the Mumbai’s Mahindra United in their eighth round match of ONGC I-League played at the Nehru stadium, Fatorda, here on Friday.

Man of the match, Mahindra custodian, veteran Sandip Nandi proved lone throne in Dempo’s quest of victory. Nandi denied Dempo a possible win by saving sure shot goals on more than two occasions.

The visitors surged ahead in the 16th minute through K N Ajayan and later failed to sustain the pressure and also couldn’t be able to negotiate Dempo’s attacking game plan, however, they did enough to salvage one point from the drawn tie.

Dempo, who is leading the table, now have 18 points from eight matches, while Mahindra has collected 11 with same number of matches.

Dempo got a shocker from Mahindra when the latter took the lead in the 16th minute through Ajayan. He received a fine defense-splitting pass from Douhou Sey D Pierre. Ajayan instantly directed the ball to the left of Dempo goalie V P Satish Kumar to draw first blood (1-0).

Five minutes later, Dempo initiated an attack to level the scores. A well-measured flag-kick from Anthony Pereira directed towards Mahindra goalie Nandi rebounded off him on to the ground for Borges to do finishing act (1-1).

Its now Dempo’s turn to call the shots and they rightly found the momentun and sustaine pressure in the rival citadel for the next half an hour with Ranti and Beto being in the thick of action.

Dempo players had to blame themselves for not being able to score the winner after restoring parity through Nicolau Borges in the 21st minute.

Dempo got unlucky two times in the first half itself, as first in the 29th minute when winger Sameer Naik set up Ranti with a corner-kick but his goal bound header missed the mark narrowly. Eight minutes later, Dempo earned a direct free-kick on the left and midfielder Beto unleashed a 25-yard shot that unluckily struck the crossbar.

On changing the ends, Dempo upped their ante to score the winner and also came close on at least two occasions to do so before the final whistle. But, their forwards Ranti and substitute Peter Carvalho missed open chances to bring disappointment for their supporters.