Services attained its best form in extra-time to beat Delhi 2-0 in a protracted pre-quarterfinal play-off and entered the quarterfinal league of the 65th senior National football championship for the Santosh Trophy here on Wednesday.
Goal drought
The action at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium saw the regulation 90 minutes remaining barren before Services ended the goal drought with a goal in each of the two sessions of extra time.
Making it a successful day for institutional sides, Railways downed Tripura 3-0 in another encounter at Bongaigaon (around 180km from here) to complete the quarterfinal qualification process.
Services struggled to string together the right attack combination for the greater part of the match.
The Services team, mainly comprising Army recruits, used a three-man attack but failed to find any success.
Offence falters
The offensive faltered in the striking zone as Shaji D'Silva, Arjun Tudu and Sochungmi Raleng failed to apply the finishing touches despite coming close to scoring on a few occasions.
On the other hand Delhi, which depended mainly on counterattacks, had a good opportunity early in the second half but the chance went abegging with striker P.K. Ningleithing shooting wide.
Services imitated its opponent's tentativeness thereafter as Raleng and Tudu squandered opportunities from close.
With the regulation time producing no score the action spilled over into extra-time, in which Services struck winning form.
Raleng found the lead in the 100th minute when he collected a through-pass from Shaji D'Silva and slotted the ball home past Delhi custodian Vikrant Sharma.
Continuing with the offensive Services had two more chances to increase the lead but for the feeble attempts of D'Silva and Tudu that made Sharma's job easy under the Delhi bar. Tudu finally got his finishing right in the 110th minute when he capped a fine solo effort to fetch Services its second goal and the ticket to the quarterfinals.
Balram Singh scored twice and P.C. Raju found the target once to help Railways dominate Tripura 3-0.
Balram Singh scored first in the 23rd minute before doubling the lead immediately after the interval in the 46th minute.
Raju scored late in the 90th minute to ensure Railways a quarterfinal berth after a prolonged break.
Railways joined Services and the two seeded sides — last year's runner-up Punjab and Goa — to complete the Group B line-up in the last-eight stage.
Thursday's matches: Quarterfinal league: Group A (Guwahati): Tamil Nadu vs Chhattisgarh; Bengal vs Manipur.
