Mumbai: Viva Kerala put up a spirited display against a struggling Mahindra United to earn a 1-1 draw in a seventh round I-League encounter at the Cooperage here on Friday.
Wisoot Bunpeng (29th) and Mohammad Rafi (54th) were the goal scorers for Viva Kerala and Mahindra United respectively.
The visitors dominated right through the match and created numerous chances.
Minutes after a T Karma shot missed the mark by a whisker, Bunpeng ensured that visitors surged ahead as he slammed home a pass from the right from inside the Mahindra box.
Mahindra suffered a huge blow as star winger Steven Dias, who missed the previous match due to illness, had to be substituted in the 23rd minute after he injured his knee.
Mahindra, who were trailing 0-1 at the breather, equalised nine minutes into the second half as Rafi’s header off a N Pradeep freekick from the left found the Viva net.
After the equaliser, the second half meandered along for a while before Pradeep missed two opportunities to score off freekicks.
With this draw, Mahindra have 11 points from seven matches while Viva Kerala have four points from six matches.
“I would have been happier had we not conceded the goal. The team is inexperienced and that is what cost us the match. We had our chances but could not make them count,” Viva Kerala’s coach A M Sreedharan said after the match.
Mahindra manager Henry Menezes was livid with his team’s performance.
“Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong for us in the first half. Though the team did better in the second half but still apart from the goal that we scored, Viva Kerala dominated us right through,” he said.
Bureau Report