TN advance on toss of the coin

Punjab, Orissa, Railways and Tamil Nadu entered the quarter-final league of the National football championship, for the Santosh Trophy, in contrasting styles on Tuesday.

Punjab, who only needed a draw to make the last eight stage, were emphatic 4-0 winners over Uttar Pradesh, while Orissa advanced as Chandigarh lost 0-5 to Delhi. A victory would have placed Chandigarh level with Orissa on pionts. Orissa had beaten Delhi 2-1 and drew with Chandigarh 1-1.

Railways, who rested some of their key players, were shocked 0-1 by Andhra Pradesh, but their 4-0 victory over AP in the earlier outing saw them go through on better goal difference.

In the other match, Tamil Nadu needed the thickest slice of luck to put Gujarat out of the reckoning. The southern side beat Bihar 2-1, the same margin that Gujarat had beaten Bihar by. As both TN and Gujarat had four points, having drawn their match 1-1, and the same goal difference, the coin was tossed and it landed in favour of Tamil Nadu.

Punjab will be grouped with Goa and Manipur; Orissa with Kerala and Assam; Railways with Maharashtra and Services, and Tamil Nadu with Bengal and Karnataka.

On Wednesday, Kerala meets Assam and Bengal comes up against Karnataka.

Punjab, assisted by JCT players, were too good for Uttar Pradesh. The duo of Sukhjit Singh and Gurjit Singh had a hand in all the goals.

The first three goals were the result of their superb cohesion. In the 24th minute, Gurjit's try was blocked by UP goalkeeper Parvez, but it went straight to Sukhjit, who slammed the ball into the net.

Both reversed the roles in the 32nd minute, when Sukhjit's shot, off a flag-kick, hit the crossbar and came back to Gurjit, who tapped home.

In between, UP skipper, medio Rramesh Rawat dislocated his right hand in an accidental clash and had to leave the field, which opened the defence further.

In the 70th minute, a penalty came Punjab's way and it was duly converted by Hardeep Saini.

In the last minute, Gurjit completed the rout, finishing off on a pass from Sukhjit.

Delhi commenced their goal-scoring spree after 30 minutes of listless football. Praveen Arora had the distinction of scoring a hat-trick. He opened the goal-glut by squeezing the ball home from a narrow angle. He then tapped in a flag-kick in the 54th minute and in the 61st minute cut back on the right flank after receiving a pass from Kaushik to drive home from another acute angle.

Manish Kumar converted a penalty in the 74th minute while Aziz Santra made it 5-0 with a chipped ball just before the final whistle.

Prakash Rao got the all-important goal in the 45th minute as Andhra Pradesh got the better of Railways 1-0.