The Army Red Football Team (ARFT), who have drawn both their games so far, come up in Group C against a twice-defeated local side Tiddim Road Athletic Union (TRAU) FC, at Imphal’s Khuman Lampak Stadium on Sunday at the 131st Durand Cup.
Army Red go up against TRAU FC
A feature of Matchday 13 is Local side TRAU FC will probably take heart from that fact in their game against ARFT on Saturday, although on evidence so far the Reds have definitely looked the more compact and organized unit.
They almost pulled off a win against a quality Indian Super League (ISL) side Chennayin FC in their first game and held the other local favourite Neroca FC to a goalless draw, in front of a boisterous home crowd, in their second.
Those performances will give ARFT the edge in the game, particularly given that their opponents have mostly looked out of depth in their first two games, barring occasional spurts of enterprise. TRAU’s best period in the tournament came in the opening 45 minutes of the Imphal derby against their arch-rivals Neroca, but since then they have rarely come close to creating a good goal scoring opportunity.
The Reds will have the added incentive of staying in the knockout hunt if they win and TRAU would have to counter all those elements to gift a win to their adoring fans.
Report- Pratyusha Mukherjee
Source- Indian Army
