Haldwani, 8 February (HS): The final match of the men’s football competition was played on Friday under the 38th National Games held in Uttarakhand. In the final, the Kerala team won the gold medal by defeating the Uttarakhand team 1-0. Uttarakhand had to be satisfied with the silver medal. In the exciting final match played in Haldwani, a tough competition was seen between the two teams. In the first half, both the teams failed to score a goal. In the second half, in the 53rd minute, Gokul S of Kerala scored a brilliant goal and gave his team a 1-0 lead. However, the situation became difficult for Kerala when their player Safwan M got a red card in the 75th minute, due to which Kerala had to play the rest of the match with 10 players. Despite this, Kerala’s defense did not give any chance to Uttarakhand to score and with a 1-0 win, Kerala won the gold medal in football in the 38th National Games. Uttarakhand had to be content with the silver medal.

Bronze medal match: Delhi beats Assam

There was a tough competition between Delhi and Assam for the bronze medal. Delhi’s Mahip Adhikari scored the first goal in the 20th minute. After this, Jasanbok Buphhang scored the second goal in the 44th minute to give Delhi a strong lead of 2-0. However, Assam also did not give up and in the injury time of the first half (45+2′) Akrang Nazari scored a goal to make the score 2-1. In the second half, Delhi’s Aditya Adhikari scored a brilliant goal in the 72nd minute to give his team a 3-1 lead again. Assam’s Jwangbala Brahma scored in the 82nd minute to make the score 3-2, but in the last moments of the match (90+6′) Aditya Adhikari scored his second and Delhi’s fourth goal to ensure a 4-2 victory. With this win, Delhi won the bronze medal, while Assam had to settle for the fourth place.

Hindusthan Samachar / Jun Sarkar