India defeated hosts Nepal 2-1 in the second friendly match played at the Dashrath Stadium in Kathmandu on Sunday. Farukh Choudhary netted the first goal of the match in the 62nd minute and skipper Sunil Chhetri doubled the lead in the 80th minute for India.
On the other hand, Tej Tamang scored the only goal for Nepal in the 87th minute. Earlier on Thursday, the first football match played between the two teams was a 1-1 draw. Talking about the second friendly match, the first half between both the teams was goalless.
At the same time, in the second half, the Indian team took an aggressive approach. Farukh Chaudhary scored in the 62nd minute to give India a 1-0 lead, while in the 80th minute of the match, captain Chhetri scored a brilliant goal and took a 2-0 lead over Nepal. A few minutes later, that is, in the 87th minute, Tamang scored a goal from Nepal’s side to reduce India’s lead.
In its attempt to equalize, Nepal began to pursue more men. Amarinder ran well in the 65th minute but was eventually stopped by Navyug Shrestha. However, Navyug Shrestha made a brilliant save. Manish Dangi had a great opportunity to give AFC another goal in the 72 minutes of the match, but he fired over the crossbar.
The Indian captain calmly went to the target and sent Kiran down the wrong path, keeping the ball at home and made it 2-0, and the Indian team was ahead 2-1 till full time. These friendly matches are being organized in view of the SAFF Championship to be held in the Maldives next month. The five-team SAFF Championship will be played from October 3 to 13 at the National Stadium in Male. Apart from India, the other participating teams are Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, hosts Maldives, and Nepal.
