New Delhi: An injury stricken Churchill Brothers defeated defending champions Prayag United in the final match up of the 124th Durand Cup 5-4 in penalty shootout to lift the championship for the third time. The match that promised lot of fireworks failed miserably to live up to the expectations with only fireworks that the near capacity crowd saw that gathered at the stadium could see was after the Churchill lifted the Championship Trophy. This was the fifth time that Churchill Brothers had entered the Country’s oldest football tournament and winning thrice. They last won the Durand Cup in 2009 when they beat Mohun Bagan 3-1.

Churchill Coach Manuel Gomez was looking very satisfied with the result and hopes to carry it forward for rest of the season. “It was a great victory especially with the top players missing. The boys played a well organized football and looked confident about winning the game from the word go and I also trusted my players that they can do it without the two main foreign players,” said Manuel.

The match should have well ended within the regulation time had the Prayag striking pair of Brazilian Joshimar De Silva and Ghanaian Yusuf Yakubu converted the chances that came their way.

Prayag United like any other game in the tournament started imposing pressure on their opposition within the first few minute of the game. Their first chance to score came in the second minute of the match when a Denson Devadas’ header off a corner from Lukram Singh hit the crossbar. Prayag got one more chance of scoring in the 19th minute of the game when Arnab Mandal’s shot on target off James corner was palmed away by the Churchill’s custodian Felix D’Souza.

Churchill Brothers on the hand playing a 4-1-4-1 combination due to the absence of their star players like Roberto Desilva  in the midfield and Henry Arnaud and Bineesh Balan tried well to put pressure on their opponents. Steven Dias and Jerry Zirsanga did well and kept moving up the flanks but the combination however left the striker Ndubuisi Opara alone to tackle Prayag’s central defenders Rasaq Bello and Arnab Mandal who were quite outstanding throughout the tournament and did not allow him to make any inroads in the match.

Two minutes prior to the half time Prayag were in hunt again, when Yusuf shot on the target but Churchill goalie D’Souza nudged it out to denied Prayag the lead in the game.

After the change of ends, Prayag United got the best chance of the match when Sukhen Dey gave a nice through pass to charging Joshimar but his shot could not find the nets as D’Souza came to the rescue again.

Six minute before the final match Prayag got one more chance to score, when Yusuf took a shot at the open nets but D’Souza’s brilliant acrobatic save diving to the right denied them again.

The extra time of the match could hardly see any action with both the team trying to play very safe with most of the activity happening within the midfield. Just before one minute remaining for the extra time to finish, Prayag’s coach Sanjay Sen replaced his first choice goalkeeper Abhijit Mandal with Somanth Khara.

Both the sides converted the first four penalty and the match was expected to get into sudden death before Yusuf, Prayag’s most experienced player after playing superbly throughout the tournament shot the ball wide off the goalpost to give Churchill the upper hand. And as Denzil Franco took his stance for the deciding spot kick, predictions were already made and he did not let it go wrong as he sweetly put the ball past the nets to give Churchill their third Durand Cup.

Prayag’s Coach Sanjay Sen did not look that dejected and accepted the loss very positively. “We played very well throughout the tournament and did not concede any field goals. The fact that we created so many chances in the field today shows the quality of this side. We played good football throughout and it is unfortunate we lost today but nevertheless we would like to carry this momentum on to the I-League,” said Sanjay.

Churchill Brothers: Lalrindika Ralte, Zakeer Mundampara, Bineesh Balan, Anton Kouacic, Denzil Franco

Prayag United: Kayne Vincent, Mohammad Rafiq, Rasaq Bello, S. Malsawn Tlunga