Deepak Singh scored the solitary goal to take Army Green to the Durand Cup quarterfinals after the former champions beat Sudeva Delhi FC 1-0 in the final Group B game at the Mohun Bagan ground, here on Friday.
Jamshedpur FC were also playing their final game simultaneously against FC Goa but they lost 0-5, allowing Army Green to go through along with group toppers FC Goa.
In the initial quarter of the first half, both Army Green and Sudeva created opportunities but it was all Greens after that. In the ninth minute, the Greens had their first major scoring opportunity when Lallawmkima took a brilliant header, but could not go past Sudeva keeper Sachin Jha.
Shubham Rana took another shot at goal on the rebound, but Sachin came up with another brilliant save.
The ball hovered around the Sudeva goal for most part of the first half. Thirty minutes into the game, two back-to-back corners almost got the Greens on the board, but Sachin made sure it was goalless at half time.
Sudeva looked all charged up in the second half. In the 46th minute, William Pauliankhum had the ball just a few yards away from the goal but failed to score.
Army Green came back strong and in the 51st minute, courtesy a nice set up and a wonderful assist by Dip Mazumdar, Deepak tapped the ball into the net.
The Delhi side did have a few chances to equalise but they could not go past Army Green's defence to end the campaign with three losses. In the day's second game, FC Goa blanked JFC 5-0 to finish on top with nine points and push their ISL rivals out of the tournament.
It was an incident free first quarter of an hour, with Goa keeping the likes of Glan Martins and Makan Chote on the bench and giving Brandon a start along with a third keeper in the tournament in Hrithik Tiwari.
They were looking to take control and eventually Devendra got a free-header off a corner in the 20th minute and nodded home from close to give Goa their first goal of the game.
Then six minutes later, Princeton Rebello got two bites of the cherry inside the JFC box and blasted the second one home past a hapless Vishal Yadav under the JFC bar.
Devendra then tapped in a third, his second of the game and third of the tournament, a minute before the break to make it 3-0 for the Goans at half time. The talented Muhammed Nemil then made the second half his own with a double strike.
