A depleted Hindustan Aeronautics Sports Club (HASC) managed to scrape past Aeronautical Development Establishment (ADE) 2-1 in the Super Division league encounter at the Bangalore Football stadium here on Saturday.
HASC were badly hit by the exodus of their top players after the team’s relegation from the I-League.
The cream of their first squad players — foreign recruits Joseph Femi and J Hamza, Malemnganba Meitei, James Singh and Rohit Chand — have already moved to other national clubs while Gautam Debnath, goalkeeper Amar Deb and Ajit Kumar Singh will be available for some more matches before joining their new clubs.
Playing their second match of the league, HASC, who had beaten BEL 2-0 in their opening match on March 20, struggled to even fill the substitutes’ bench.
Goals from Vinoth Kumar (12th) and RC Prakash (31st) earned the newly-appointed manager H Chandrashekar a winning start on his return to his former club. Sridhar reduced the margin for ADE in the 82nd minute.
HASC were made to sweat in the initial stages of the match with ADE, who have a dozen new recruits, matching their more fancied opponents in all departments of the game. However, HASC’s experience paid dividends as Samuel, one of the players on loan, essayed a cross from the left and Vinoth directed it into the goal past Mark Mascarenhas after fumbling with his first chance.
ADE showed more urgency after the reverse and came close to scoring when Murugan’s left-footer hit the cross piece but they soon ran out of steam. Soon after, HASC swelled the lead with Prakash slotting home a pass from substitute Karthikeyan after sidestepping Mascarenhas.
Upon resumption, HASC’s forwards had a bagful of chances but Prakash and Vinoth failed in front of the goal. Totally against the run of play, ADE’s Sridhar slotted home a through pass from Santhosh in the 82nd minute. The midfielder could have put ADE on level terms soon after, but he volleyed wide.
Other result: ‘A’ Division: ISRO: 2 (Raghavendra 32nd, Thamaraselvam 54th) bt Dharmaraja Union: 1 (Shyam 68th).