FC Bengaluru United (FCBU) became the first side to make it through to the knockout rounds of the Durand Cup in its 130th edition. FCBU found themselves in a thrilling encounter against the Indian Air Force to win the tie 4-2 in Group A earlier today at the Kalyani Stadium.
Scoring a brace, securing 3⃣ points‼️
Yumnam Gopi of FC Bengaluru United takes away the Man of the Match award 💪🏻⚽#DurandCup2021 #Kolkata #football #aiff #cherrytree #indianairforcefootballteam #fcbengaluruunited #IndianAirForceFootballTeamVSFCBengaluruUnited #ARFFCB pic.twitter.com/nj06WWmZeu
— Durand Cup (@thedurandcup) September 9, 2021
The 32-year-old Spaniard Pedro Manzi was the architect of the attack as he set up two goals for his teammate Yumnam Gopi Singh while scoring a brace from himself as well.
The Indian Air Force team gave it everything they had in the tank while even largely dominating parts of the second half. However, the defeat against FCBU sends them crashing out of the Durand Cup while having another final game to play in the group.
FCBU now have a total of six points for two games played with a previous win 1-0 against CRPF in their opening group game making it more than enough to advance into the quarter-finals of the tournament.
Although another loss for the Indian Air Force side, they have shown a much-improved performance compared to their opening game 4-1 defeat to Mohammed Sporting Club.
The Airmen (Indian Air Force) had an early chance to take the lead in the very first minute of the game where Vivek missed a great opportunity after finding himself behind the FCBU defence line in hopes of a better thing to follow after the chance not being converted. Vivek had soon later scored a brace for the Airmen to compensate for the earlier chance.
FCBU finally stuck back in the 72nd minute of the game as the Manzi and Gopi combination worked in full effect for the duo scoring a brace each to end the game in their favour. The final Group A game shall be played between FCBU and Mohammedan Sporting Club while the latter taken on CRPF tomorrow at Kalyani.
