Odafa and Sunil keep Bagan in the title chase after they scored for Bagan in the game against Southern Samity today. It was a good game as both the teams played open football till the end and many opportunities were created. Both the goalies – Sangram and Abhijit had busy days under the wood works and did well in saving goals.

Bagan played in a formation of 4-5-1 in the first half of the game. It was a new defense and for the first time Pradeep, Masih, Anwar and Daljit played together as the defenders. Midfield was of Manish Bhargav (U-19), Jewel, Zeleny, Murali and Lima. Ashim was the lone forward in the frontline. Lima played well and operated from the left keeping Southern defenders busy.  Jewel operated from the middle while Pradeep was operating well from the right. Zeleny played well as a defensive mideo foiling many southern attacks.

But ball distribution by Zeleny, Murali, Anwar and Daljit were awful. There were series of misspasses – and at timesDaljit and Pradeep failed to come back after they overlapped. Sangram and Anwar did well in foiling Southern moves from counter attacks.

In the second half Odafa replaced Murali who was miserable today. But the situation did not improve. Soon sunil replaced Zeleny – and Bagan moved into 4-3-3 combination. In Zeleny’s absence there was a pressure on the defense. However, again Anwar and Sangram did well to stop Southern attacks. In the 76th minute Barreto replaced Jewel and Bagan had 4-2-4 formation. Southern failed to resist the pressure and in the 79th minute Celestine fall down in an Odafa move and stopped the ball with his hand. Bagan was awareded with a penalty. Odafa scored the first goal by placing the ball to the right of Abhijit.

But Southern faught well and tried to equalise. In the 90th minute Odafa got an opportunity to increase the margin but Abhijit saved his shot – the ball went to unguarded Sunil who didn’t make any mistake to convert that to a goal.

Bagan earned 3 vital points and are still in the title chase.

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