Bengaluru: N Rakesh Singh scored twice in Kickstart FC’s 3-1 victory over Pune’s GOG FCC in Group D of the I-League 3 at the Duler Football Stadium in Mapusa, Goa, on Saturday.
Rakesh opened the scoring as early as sixth minute before Alvin Khyriem equalised at the hour mark. Rakesh, however, scored the decisive goal three minutes later while Sridarth Nongmeikapam added another at the 90th minute.
The second consecutive victory lifted Kickstart second on the table behind leaders Salgaocar FC, who have won all their three matches so far.
Kickstart face Rajasthan’s Zinc FA on Monday in their last group game with their chances of further progression hanging by a thread.
Kickstart FC’s qualification scenario
In order to top the group, they need GOG FCC to do them a favour by defeating Salgaocar FC on the same day while winning their own encounter.
The alternate qualification way is to be the topper among runners-up from all four groups.
Interestingly, Group A consist of four teams while the rest of the groups have five. As done by the I-League 3 organisers at the last edition, results of all the remaining group runners-up against the bottom-placed opponents won’t be accounted for in the qualification calculation to make it a level playing field.
This leaves current runners-up leader Godavari FC (from Group C) at six points with a goal difference of 10, making it essential for Kickstart FC (3 points as per scenario now) to post a win by a 10-goal margin as their goal difference drops to just 1 after omitting their 5-1 victory over bottom-placed RT Boys FC.
Results: Kickstart FC: 3 (N Rakesh Singh 6th, 63rd, Sridarth Nongmeikapam 90th) bt GOG FCC (Alvin Khyriem 60th).