Mahindra, Bagan in Durand semis

Defending champions Salgaocar, Goa, bowed out of the Durand Cup football championship in Delhi on Monday, going down to Mahindra United by a solitary goal in a quarter-final league match.

Earlier, Mohun Bagan outclassed Tata Football Academy by three first half goals to finish second in the group.

Mahindra United will clash with Kingfisher East Bengal in the first semi-final on November 8 while Zee Churchill will lock horns with Mohun Bagan the next day.

Salgoacar never played like defending champions and except for a brief spell towards the end of first half, they surrendered meekly.

Kicking off the proceedings Mahindra United straightaway went into the attack mode. In the first minute Aqeel Ansari's free-kick gave Abbas Ali Rizwi a chance to score but he fumbled.

In the fifth minute, Anthony Pereira started from the middle and ran down the left wing. He then sent in a cross which caught the Salgaocar defence napping. Abhay Kumar recived the cross and passed it to S Venkatesh. The wiry right half took a powerful shot from a difficult angle that beat a diving Salgoacar custodian Juje Siddi and went in after hitting the inside of the right post.

Other than the goal, Mahindra looked subdued till the break. On the other hand Salgaocar slowed down the tempo and slowly took control of the proceedings. Though Denis Cabral, Dharamjit Singh and Jos Esteves released some excellent balls for the forwards, veteran striker Bruno Coutinho and Alvito D'Cunha failed to capitalise.

After the break Salgaocar failed to continue their good work and quickly lost the advantage.

By the 60th minute Mahindra coach Shabbir Ali changed his forwards Manjit Singh and Abhay Kumar with Khalid Siddique and Mohammed Najeeb which gave more teeth to the Mahindra forward line as they made repeated inroads into the Salgoacar penalty box.

In the 74th minute Abbas Ali found an unmarked Najeeb, whose powerful volley forced Juje to make a diving save. It was Juje's splendid saves that saved Salgaocar from further embarrassment. Twice he saved two dangerous runs by Najeeb and Venkatesh inside the box.

Najeeb, in the 85th minute, evaded his marker and let off a powerful shot but Juje Siddi was in no mood to relent.

And finally in injury time Venkatesh missed an open goal after Najeeb dodged past a few defenders and Juje.

In the first match, Tata Football Academy went down to a superior Bagan side. By the 40th minute the Calcutta team were up by three goals and then played a sleepy second half to qualify for the semifinals as the second team from Group I with five points.

In the 16th minute, Barretto opened the scoring with a powerful header after his pass to Basu Deb Mondal was returned to him.

Bagan forwards toyed with the TFA defence and increased the lead in the 22nd minute. This time it was Santos's turn. He found the target from a R P Singh pass. In the 40th minute Mondal moved into the box dodging past the TFA defence. Barretto, who was lurking inside the box, received the pass and with a clinical finish made it 3-0.