BEML thrash HAL in Puttaiah Memorial Cup

Continuing the good run, BEML walloped their arch rival and defending champion HAL 4-2 on the semifinal encounter in the Puttaiah Memorial Cup.

The knock-out stages of the Puttaiah Memorial Cup was postponed by a week to accommodate the foundation stone ceremony for the football academy under FIFA Goal Project.

It was a derby-day of sort, the soccer-frenzy crowd in the garden city gathered in the Bangalore Football Stadium. Finally at the end of the day, the crowd got their moneys worth by watching a fast-paced lively match that experienced 6 goals.

The match strated in a lively note with both teams exchanging big hits. Once, HAL was unclucky when Xavier’s diagonal shot was not placed in the goal.

HAL draw the first blood in the 25th minute, Bimal Minz’s powerful swerving left footer found the BEML goal after a defensive lap.

Within 2 minutes, BEML scored the equalizer when a HAL defender hand-balled inside the penalty box area. Defender Alex Shamaki made no mistake in converting the penalty for BEML.

HAL captain, Xavier VijayKumar, made some neat moves from the flanks, however the HAL strikers failed to convert thre moves into goal.

At the fag end of the first half, former national player and veteran BEML striker RC Prakash who had a bad day at the office messed-up a golden opportunity. The ageing striker had to just place the ball in the open net, however, the opponent defender outran him by sheer pace.

In the second half, HAL was seen mainly attacking from the right side but failed to see a goal.

BEML took lead when Nigerian striker Abdulla Hamza scored in the 65th minute. Within 8 minutes, it was another one from Hamza, and this time, it was Manipuri Tiken Singh who provided a picture-perfect cross to Hamza.

It was Tiken again, few minutes after their 3rd goal dribbled past a couple of HAL players, and let loose a powerful shot to make the score 4-1.

HAL striker Fredrick Okwabe pulled one in the 89th minute, but by then the door was already shut for HAL.

This loss would not do any good for HAL who will be playing in the Federation Cup qualifiers at Calicut later this month.

The final of the Puttaiah Memorial Cup will be played between BEML and MEG on Sunday, November 8. In the other semifinal played on Friday, MEG defeated Karnataka State Police (KSP) by 2-1.

The gate money for today’s match went for a noble cause, in the Chief Ministers Flood Relied Fund for the recent flood that mainly affected northern part of Karnataka.