Mumbai giants Mahindra United scored two spectacular goals in the second-half to beat Tollygunge Agragami, Kolkata, 2-1 in an absorbing Oil PSU National Football League match at the Cooperage in Mumbai on Thursday.
Tollygunge shot into the lead in the fourth minute through their Nigerian striker Awoyemi Akeem, who lobbed the ball intelligently over an advancing Mahindra custodian S Rajan.
The home team rallied strongly and should have found the equaliser in the 12th minute but striker Ednei Damasio's shot following a pass from Ivory Coast player Mongba Aby Samson's cross hit the upright and ricocheted to R C Prakash, whose volley was punched over by Tollygunge goalkeeper Gopal Das.
With three minutes to go for the breather, Mahindra cursed their luck again as a Damasio header went just over the crossbar with Das beaten.
Returning from the breather a goal in arrears, Mahindra applied tremendous pressue in the second session. They were inspired by an outstanding performance by Samson, who not only enabled them restored parity in the 68th minute, heading home in spectacular fashion from a James Singh free-kick, but also scored the winning goal.
Three minutes from the end Samson scored again after Tollygunge keeper Das failed to make a clean collection of Damasio's shot.
For his efforts, Samson was named man of the match.
At the end of the 18th round, Mahindra have a respectable 23 points from six wins, five draws and seven losses.
Tollygunge remain on 22 points, with six wins, four draws and eight losses.
