Kozhikode (Kerala)[India], April 7 : Dempo SC effected a brilliant comeback from two goals down to beat Gokulam Kerala 4-3 at the EMS Corporation Stadium on Sunday. The scores were tied 2-2 at half-time.
Thabiso Brown's (4', 11', 73') last-day hat-trick was not enough for the hosts, who needed an outright win and for Churchill Brothers to lose their fixture to win the title. In the end, they didn't even manage to fulfil their part in the saga. Cristian Damian Perez (21', 90+4') scored two, while Kapil Hoble (34') and Didier Brossou (71') netted one each for Dempo.
To their credit, though, the early stages of the game were all Gokulam. They came out all guns blazing, and barely 30 seconds had passed on the clock when VP Suhair had their first shot at goal, cutting in from the left before blazing his effort high. It seemed to be a sign of things to come.
And they did. In the fourth minute, Gokulam took the lead, Thabiso Brown picking up a loose ball outside the area, outmuscling Shaher Shaheen before finishing perfectly in the bottom corner. The bench erupted with joy. Gokulam had done their bit, taking the lead and squeezing the gap at the top of the table as things stood.
Things got better for them when Real Kashmir scored the opener against Churchill in Srinagar, effectively putting Gokulam in position for the title. At the other end of the subcontinent, in Kozhikode, though, this information meant little. And yet, Gokulam seemed buoyant and dominant when Brown scored his second in the 11th minute, tapping in Ignacio de Loyola's cut-back from inside the six-yard box. The hosts were cruising.
And then suddenly, their motors jammed. A long period of Dempo pressure ensued, with Rakshit Dagar forced into two smart saves from corners. In the 21st minute, Dempo got their reward. Having won the ball high, Dempo's midfield passed it to a lurking Cristian Perez, who slammed a rising shot into the top corner from outside the box.
In the 34th, it was all level when Marcus Joseph fizzed a brilliant cross to the far post, bamboozling Gokulam's defence. An onrushing Kapil Hoble merely had to tap it in from five yards out.
Gokulam had to start over. With half time approaching, Ashish Sibi pulled off a sharp save off Suhair's close-range header, albeit only managing to put the ball into the path of de Loyola. The Spaniard smashed his volley perfectly, only to see it bounce off the post. They came even closer in the first half stoppage time, when again Sibi at full stretch thwarted what was a sure-shot header into the goal. A dramatic half closed with the teams even.
Sibi's heroics, as they have all season, kept Dempo level in the early stages of the second half too. The best of these came on the hour mark, when the goalkeeper tipped a close-range cannoning header from de Loyola onto the crossbar and over. From the resultant corner, Dempo cleared an attempt off the line.
Up north, Churchill's equaliser had tipped the scales again, and Gokulam's momentum stuttered ever so slightly. Their fate, again, is no longer entirely in their own hands. Things got worse in the 64th when Mashoor Shereef earned a second yellow card to get himself sent off and reduce the hosts to 10.
Dempo duly capitalised on the numerical advantage, Didier Brossou slamming in a header from Perez's brilliant cross to give them a 70th-minute lead. It lasted a mere two minutes, Brown slamming in the loose ball from a corner to draw the hosts level.
Gokulam poured forward in numbers, hoping to force a winner and, at the very least, do their part in this thrilling end to the I-League season. Dempo capitalised on their attack-focused strategy and, deep in injury time, launched a counterattack to extinguish their slim hopes of a miracle.
Having first drawn a save from substitute goalkeeper Shibinraj Kunniyil, Nesto Dias picked up the rebound and laid it in the path of Perez, who coolly slammed it with the outside of his foot into the top corner. For a second time, Dempo had the lead, and this time they held it, to take the three points.
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