Sports Mania down ARA F.C, again

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Pune, 21st January 2025: Sports Mania returned to winning ways, downing ARA F.C 2-1, in a Pool-H encounter of the AIFF Elite Youth League at Sports Arena Turf, Wakad on Sunday. The win completed a ‘double win’ for Sports Mania who won the away-leg with a similar scoreline.

Victory against ARA F.C was their fifth win (6 matches). At ‘home’ the win was their second after getting past Maharashtra Oranje F. C 2-1 in the first week of January 2025.

Coming off a 0-3 loss to Zinc F.C in their last ‘away’ game, Sports Mania struck both goals in the second half via Nimish Pathak (60th) and Prithviraj Patil (71st).

For ARA F.C, Samrat Chouhan (90+6) reduced the margin.

After settling down and playing the first-half goalless it was Sports Mania who drew first blood. The goal came off a corner taken by Aditya Kamble which was miss-punched by the ARA F.C ‘keeper leaving the ball travelling to Nimesh positioned inside the 6-yard box. Nimesh tapped home (1-0) with just the goal at his disposal.

Eleven minutes later, Prithviraj made the scoreline 2-0. Aariz Shaikh played an early cross from the left which Prithviraj gained control following a diagonal run. Picking up the cross on the run Prithviraj beat the advancing ARA F.C goalkeeper and netted. The goal was Prithviraj’s fourth in the league.

Down by a brace, ARA F.C pulled one back through Samrat Chouhan (90+6).The goal was off a freekick taken by Vedant Jaiswal from the right which was well saved by goalkeeper Md. Zainulabeddin. However, a header from Samrat off the resulting corner made it 2-1.

The match had one red card flashed to Arnav Baksani (75th) of ARA F.C who was pulled up for a high-foot challenge on Nimesh Pathak who went for the header.

Sports Mania took their points tally to 15 points (6 matches) and occupy 2nd position behind undefeated Zinc F.C (18 points) in the league.