ICF took a vital step towards winning the St. Joseph’s Chennai Football Association (CFA) senior division league title with a hard-fought 4-2 win over AGORC on Wednesday.
After having led 3-0 at half time, the railwaymen faced a spirited fight back from its opponents but ultimately prevailed to go top of the table with 26 points.
ICF has one more game left and is closely followed by Arrows on 25 points and Indian Bank on 23. On Thursday, Indian Bank will take on Arrows, in the respective teams’ last fixture, and a loss for Arrows will help ICF take home the title.
Hat-trick by JayakumarU. Jayakumar was ICF’s star, scoring a hat-trick and providing the assist for the other.
The first goal came in the very first minute, when Jayakumar, after beating two men on the right, crossed for V. Ashok Kumar to head the ball in.
He then scored his first two goals, in the 10th and 30th minutes, finishing off a through ball from Freddy and heading in an excellent cross from M. Baskar respectively.
AGORC looked down and out, but it dominated the match post half-time.
A goal through a penalty right after the restart set the tone, before A. Raegan narrowed the lead in the 62nd minute though a marvellously taken goal from just inside the area. Vikram Patil could have brought AGORC level late on but failed to connect a Raegan cross from point-blank range. With three minutes left, Jayakumar scored his third and put the result beyond doubt.
The results: ICF 4 (V. Ashok Kumar 1, U. Jayakumar 10, 30, 87) bt AGORC 2 (R. Naveen Kumar 47, A. Raegan 62).
