Chandigarh: Bengaluru Football Club, Bangalore, edged past Dalbir Football Academy, Patiala, by a margin of 2-1 in the opening match of 13th Administrators Challenge Cup All India Football Tournament kicked off at Sector 17 Football Stadium, here on Tuesday.

Both the teams exhibited slow pace game in the initial minutes of the game. However, the first move was framed by Dalbir Football Academy from the mid of the field. Their medio Japanjot Singh gave a through pass to Gurmeet Singh in the 5th minute of play. Gurmeet crossed the half way line and after controlling the ball he took a grounder shoot at the open net but his shot struck the bar. It was again Gurmeet who got a ball from the left flank in the 7th minute of play but this time his attempt was foiled by Bengaluru custodian Bill Clinton. Thereafter Bengaluru lads came up with couple of good moves and took the control of the game. In the 13th minute of play Bengaluru lads framed a move from the left flank but the shoot went over the bar.

In the 23rd minute of play Bengaluru FC framed a move from the right flank, their right winger Steve J Anthony sent a cross in the Dalbirs penalty area where alert striker Gaurav made no mistake in opening the account for his team. After conceding the goal Dalbir lads started playing fast pace game but Bangaluru lads manages to retain 1-0 lead.
After the half time interval both the teams indulged in tough play and raided the defence line of each other.

Bangaluru lads were playing short passes where as Dalbir lads adopted high and long passes, had Dalbirs lads not missed four to five chances the result would Have been different.

In the 83 rd minute of play, Dalbir’s Navdeep Khokhar was brought down by the Bangaluru player and direct free kick was awarded by referee Ravinder Singh in favour of Dalbir Academy, Harminder Singh converted the kick into goal and equalised the score. After conceding the equalizer, Bengaluru lads came up in a whirlwind fashion and exerted pressure. Their six players went up and managed to score their second goal. The goal was scored by Joshua. D. Nallapali in the 84th minute of play, which proved to be the winning goal for Bengalure lads.

Earlier the tournament was inaugurated by Vijay Kumar Dev, IAS, Advisor to the Administrator. He took the salute at the march past of the participating teams