U20 Men’s Football Nationals: Karnataka, Jharkhand score contrasting wins

Karnataka trounced Ladakh by a massive margin in a group stage encounter to take the top spot in Group C of the Swami Vivekananda U-20 Men’s National Football Championship at the Ramakrishna Ashram Ground here on Monday.

In the second game of the day, Jharkhand relied on a goal scored deep in injury time to register their first points in the competition, and pipped their opponents Uttar Pradesh to second place in the group.

In a performance that was essentially a laying down of the gauntlet for other contenders, Karnataka put newcomers Ladakh to the sword, riding on Borish Singh’s four goals (5′, 15′, 26′, 31′) to romp to an 11-0 victory.

Borish started the scoring in as early as the fifth minute, ghosting past three defenders from the right before unleashing a shot into the far corner. From there it was basically a match to see how many more they could add to the score.

Other goal-scorers for Karnataka included Premish Singh (9′, 39′), Ishaan Ragunanda (45′), Mir Mohamed Raza (71′), B Jayasurya (83′), Ricky Singh (90′) and M Nihaar (90′ + 2′).

Jharkhand edge out U.P.

Despite a plethora of chances at both ends, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh were unable to put them away, mostly not just due to the profligacy of their strikers but the brilliance of the shot-stoppers. Jharkhand’s Md Adnan and Uttar Pradesh’s Shubham Patel were exceptional between the posts, pulling off multiple saves between them.

Despite having lost their group opener, Jharkhand were actually the more dominant side through the proceedings and got their just reward deep into injury time.

From Ajay Hansdak’s ball, Bisu Minj tapped a brilliant first-time pass into the path of Remson Singh. The forward glided into the box from the left and did not err, slotting it between the keeper’s legs to give them the goal and the points.