New Delhi: Churchill Brothers beat Prayag United 5-4 via a penalty shoot-out in the final of the 124th edition of the Durand Cup, played at the Ambedkar Stadium in Delhi on Saturday evening.
The Goan side were without the services of their striker Henri Antchouet, who was red-carded in the semi-final against Shillong Lajong, thus starting with ND Opara as their lone striker, while Beto was benched due to injury.
Prayag United started with a strong four-member defence marshalled by Bello Rasaq, Deepak Mandal, Sukhen Dey and Arnab Mondal. Josimar da Silva and Yusif Yakubu played up-front, with James Singh and Gouranga Biswas on either flanks.
The match had to be decided via a tie-breaker after both teams were not able to break the deadlock after 120 minutes of play.
Prayag United made their intentions clear as they forced the first corner of the match through a long ball to Josimar, which was cleared in the box almost immediately after kick-off.
Lukram James Singh tried a long-ranger, but the Kolkata side's first attempt resulted in a comfortable catch for Churchill Brothers goalkeeper Felix D'Souza.
Minutes later, at the opposite end, ND Opara fired two subsequent chances off target, not causing any trouble to Prayag custodian Abhijit Mondal.
Felix D'Souza was back in action in the 18th minute as he did well to save Arnab Mondal's free header off a James Singh corner, and in the very next minute he was thwarting another James Singh corner kick.
Churchill Brothers' first shot on target came in the 26th minute when Zakeer Mundampara shot straight into the hands of Abhijit Mondal off a long-range effort.
Just after the half-hour mark, Abhijit Mondal and ND Opara were both involved in a one-on-one situation, but the Prayag keeper did well to get off his line to sweep the ball off the Churchill striker.
Sanjoy Sen was shaking his head in disbelief as his side missed a string of goal-scoring opportunities before the first half ended 0-0.
Josimar squandered two chances from inside the box, other than a brilliant finger-tip save by Felix D'Souza to prevent Yusif Yakubu's powerful shot from outside the box.
The second half was not short of chances on both sides, Prayag United making their first change by bringing in Tulunga in place of James Singh.
Five minutes in the first half, Churchill Brothers won their first corner which was curled in by Steven Dias, but substitute Jerry wasn't able to direct the ball on target.
In the 55th minute, Prayag's Josimar was again guilty of not scoring, not doing enough to head Deepak Mandal's cross before the ball was cleared by Gouramangi Moirangthem.
Ten minutes later, Felix D'Souza saved Josimar's shot from hand-shaking distance after the Prayag striker was fed by Bello Rasaq, while the remains were hopelessly shot off target in front of an empty net by Tulunga.
Churchill's Lenny Rodrigues and Opara fired a few more shots off target, along-with Prayag's Josimar, while Felix D'Souza effected yet another save off the feet of Yakubu before the match went into extra time.
Lalrindika Ralte missed the first chance in added time to give the Goan side the lead against the run of play, while at the other end Felix kept out Yakubu from scoring.
Josimar was the most guilty of all for the amount of missed chances, the last coming off Shylo Tulunga's cross, before being substituted by Kayne Vincent.
In the penalty kicks, Kayne Vincent, Mohammed Rafique, Bello Rasaq and Shylo Tulunga scored for Prayag United, while Yusif Yakubu shot wide.
Lalrindika Ralte, Zakeer Mundampara, Bineesh Balan, Antun Kovacic and Denzil Franco were all on target for Churchill Brothers.
Churchill Brothers had won the Durand Cup a year ago.
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