Nawayug netted an early 18th minute goal for the departmental team which turned out to be the decisive goal. The win lifted Army from fourth to third position with 20 points from 11 matches. MMC with 19 points, meanwhile, missed chance to level point with archrival Three Star Club at second position. Jhapa leads the standings with 24 points, two ahead of second-placed Three Star, but the leader has played two matches more than top four teams in the standings.In the day's early kick off, U-19 national players Ananta Tamang, Shiva Subedi, Bimal Gharti Magar and Tej Tamang were on target for FWFC as they registered a convincing win over faltering Police. The result left FWFC and Police steady on sixth and seventh positions with 17 and 12 points respectively. It was however, the 14th match of FWFC and 12th of Police in the tournament which does not have provision of relegation.
FWFC could have finished with wider score-line had it not wasted as many as half a dozen of scoring opportunities in the later stage of the match. FWFC coach Kiran Shrestha said that his side could have score more if the forwards had not wasted scoring chances. "The performance of the team is getting better every day. The quick passes are big trouble to opponents."
Ananta Tamang gave an early third minute lead to the FWFC when he perfectly headed Lawal Olaekan Afeez's freekick. Police restored parity in the 18th with a flick header from skipper Jumanu Rai in Ram Chandra Wajee's cross as FWFC custodian misread the ball movement.
FWFC restored lead three minutes before the interval after Shiva's strike deflected at a Police defender and changed its course to find the net. FWFC came up with more offensive style and made it 3-1 three minutes after the break. Bimal converted a low ball fed by Tej from the area. Tej sealed the victory for FWFC with a scorcher from outside the zone after exchanging couple of passes with Bimal.
Veteran Police coach Birat Krishna Shrestha pointed to poor defending and not sticking to game plan as the reason of defeat. "The zonal marking system was not implemented properly which made the task easy for opponent strikers," Shrestha said.
In the late fixture, Nawayug headed home Deepak Gurung's cross from the right flank in the 18th minute as it became sufficient for Army to seal victory over six time champion MMC. It was the sixth goal of Nawayug, four behind leading scorer Karna Limbu of Jhapa.
Army coach Megh Raj KC expressed satisfaction with the team's performance and competition within the squad for making his team better.
KC's counterpart Raju Kaji Shakya said that changes he made in the squad backfired.
"Stephen Mbile came to replace Sissoko and Bikram Limbu came in place of Nabin Neupane. We made changes in the squad assuming that Army would be physical game. But the decision to change the defensive pair backfired," he said.
He however added that the defeat does not mean MMC is out of race as they are yet to play five more matches.
There won't be any match of the league on Wednesday.
Related story
5 things about Nawayug Shrestha
