In Santosh Trophy Meghalaya and Karnataka will play Final

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In Santosh Trophy Meghalaya and Karnataka will play Final

RIYADH: Meghalaya and Karnataka stunned former champions Punjab and Services respectively in the Santosh Trophy national football championship here on Wednesday to set up a summit clash between them.

Meghalaya staged a spirited fight back from a one-goal deficit to beat eight-time champions Punjab 2-1 in the first semi-final and enter their first final.
Karnataka then beat Services, who have won five titles in the last 10 years, 3-1 in the second semi-final to enter their first final in 37 years. The last time Karnataka was in the final was in 1975-76 when they lost to Bengal.

The final between Meghalaya and Karnataka will be played on Saturday, while the third-place playoff between Punjab and Services will also be played earlier the same day.
Punjab has reached the semi-finals without losing a match. They topped their group in both the first and second rounds.

The semi-finals, third-place play-off and the final are being played here as the Santosh Trophy is being held on foreign shores for the first time in its history.
Paramjit Singh had given Punjab the lead in the 16th minute but Meghalaya restored parity in the 37th minute through Figo Syndai when he coolly slotted home after Nikelson Bina’s header in front of goal.
Meghalaya, playing in their first semi-final, controlled the majority of the match after the tie but could not find a goal until the very end of the match.

Sheen Stevenson Sohktung scored in injury time (90+1) in a match played at a near-empty King Fahd International Stadium.
Punjab, who have left out a few players who played in the second round in Bhubaneswar, will thus have to wait for the title they last won in 2007-08.

In the other semi-final, Services and Karnataka were level, before three goals came in the last five minutes of the first half.
Services’ Bikash Thapa and Karnataka’s Abhishek Powar conceded one goal each in the 33rd and 38th minutes respectively. Thapa then gave Services the lead in the 40th minute.
But two minutes later, Robin Yadav restored parity with a free-kick, before P Ankith gave Karnataka the lead in the first minute of first-half injury time (45+1) as Karnataka took a 2-1 lead.

Karnataka put the match out of Services’ reach when M Sunil Kumar scored in the 77th minute to make it 3-1.

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