Sydney: Striker Diego Mauricio came off the bench and scored twice, including a stunner in stoppage time, to help Odisha FC draw 2-2 against Jamshedpur after trailing 2-0 in the first half an hour of the match.
Mauricio was brought on in the 60th minute in place of Manuel Onwu as Odisha were pushing to halve the lead that Jamshedpur had on them. The pressure soon paid off as Jamshedpur goalkeeper Rehenesh got sent off for handling the ball outside of his box. It meant that Jamshedpur had to take off Jackichand Singh to accomodate the new goalkeeper.
While Odisha’s goal did not come directly from the ensuing free kick, Mauricio put it in after a scramble inside the box after the kick was taken. While Jamshedpur had a chance through a free kick of their own shortly thereafter, Odisha kept the pressure up. It was only in the 91st minute of the game that Mauricio cut to his right after he was allowed to turn on the left hand side of the box before launching a shot to the far post.
It was quite a different story in the early exchanges of the first half with Jamshedpur keeping the ball near Odisha’s ball. They were given a penalty in the 12th minute due to hand ball and Nerijus Valskis made no mistake with the spot kick. Valskis doubled the lead in the 27th minute after a defensive howler from Shubham Sarangi gave him the ball and he put it past the goalkeeper with aplomb.
IANS