Aizawl beat Shivajians thanks to Joel Sunday strike, keep hopes of saving relegation alive

JOEL SUNDAY FOUND the mark to score a goal that very well may have saved Aizawl FC's season, as the newly promoted club ended their maiden I-League campaign with a 0-1 victory over DSK Shivajians in Pune tonight.

Aizawl came into the game with the zeal you'd expect from a team literally fighting for survival. Alfred Jaryan set the tone with his early foul on Amiri, for which he was lucky not to get carded. The Shivajians responded with a free-kick delivered into Aizawl box that Dipanda shot woefully off target.

Suranchandra had a great chance to shoot from a scoring range but botched the effort, and Juan Quero did great to sset up Douhou Pierre right outside the penalty box but the latter was caught offside.

The same Surachandra almost made a mess of it for his own team when Sandesh Jhingan rescued the ball inside the Shivajians box, the former headed it straight towards Zohmingmawia. The mistake however stopped just short of resulting in a goal. The intensity of the game was on the rise as Alfred Jaryan almost kicked Sandesh Jhingan in the face during a tackle.

Zohmingmawia charged into the Shivajians box and got brought down. The referee, however, waved off the penalty appeal. Then Lalmuankima got the ball right inside the box with only Subrata Paul ahead of him, but shot it wide.

The dangerous presence of Zohmingmawia continued spelling trouble for the home side as he took a free kick that Paul managed to slap away. The ball went straight to Yuta Kinowaki who had an empty net to push the ball into but somehow managed to shoot off target.

Agonizing though these misses were at a time when Aizawl FC needed to win this match to have a chance to avoid relegation, the chances they were creating was were keeping the home side on their toes. The first half ended goalless, but the game was on.

DSK started the second half strongly. Douhou Pierre and Juan Quero combined to set up Baljit Sahni who could not find the target. Then Quero sent in a good ball for Jhingan that was a bit too high to be of any help. But then Aizawl got what they were looking for all this time.

It was Lalmuankima who sent in the cross from the left that Joel Sunday, perfectly positioned in the middle of the penalty box, headed straight home. Finally the attacking efforts of the newly promoted side had borne fruit. It was 0-1 at the hour mark.

The Shivajians almost got back even with Amiri getting a ball in for Dipanda to hammer towards the goal but Aizawl keeper Anganba made a full-stretch, diving, one-handed save to keep his team ahead.

Joel Sunday almostv scored a second when he got deep and let fly from a distance and had Paul beaten; but the ball went just wide.

Douhou Pierre created a scary moment for the relegation battlers when he got on the back of a high ball, received it with his chest and fired away, but Anganba was once again agile enough to make a termendous save.

As the minutes wore on substitutions took place all over the place as Aizawl wanted to eat away the seconds and the Shivajians aimed to take on a more aggressive posture and get an equalizer. Newly introduced Israil Gurung tried to make some disturbance in the final third mostly without success. Then Dipanda fed Amiri inside the box and the latter headed it wide; the last palpable chance went begging.

The home team made it worse for themselves in the last few minutes as Juan Quero misbehaved with the referee and Haroon Amiri committed a 2-footed foul; both got booked. The match finally ended with Aizawl FC registering a hard-earned 0-1 win that, as the final act of their debut season in the I-League, created some hope of avoiding relegation.

DSK Shivajians suffered their first loss tonight after a 7-match unbeaten run. They are now on 15 points from 15 matches, conveniently undisturbed by the relegation battle raging around them thanks to being immune to it. This win, meanwhile, let Aizawl FC finish their campaign at 16 points from 16 matches; currently 6th on the league table. 

But the danger of relegation is nowhere near over for Aizawl as they will have to look at how Shillong Lajong (15 points from 14 games) and Mumbai FC (13 points from 14 games) do in their remainging matches. These two relegation contenders will face off at Cooperage tomorrow and depending on how they fare, the final matchweek will see a final battle for survival play out in the I-League.