KARACHI, May 26: National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) ended a two decades long drought for a major trophy on Sunday when they won the National Challenge Cup after a narrow 1-0 victory over Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) in the final.
The only goal of an entertaining clash at the Dring Football Stadium in Bahawalpur came in the 81st minute when Mohammad Asif scored after a quick counterattack and calmly slotted the ball past KESC custodian Jahangir.
Victory for Nasir Ismail’s men meant they captured their second Challenge Cup title twenty years after they defeated Pakistan Steel in the 1993 final.
“It is a massive victory,” Nasir told Dawn after the match on Sunday. “All credit goes to my players, my team management and the technical staff who have made the team worthy of challenging for honours.
“I’m really proud of my players who have shown their true potential by winning such an important match. The team has matured over the last year, especially after we gave a chance to many of our youngsters in the Pakistan Premier Football League.”
For KESC, the defeat was an especially bitter pill to swallow.
Losing finalists in the last two editions of Pakistan’s premier cup event, they were looking to win it this time around but were undone by an NBP side who rode their luck at times before denting KESC’s aspirations nine minutes from time.
“We wasted a number of chances to score,” lamented KESC’s Sports and Marketing head Zabe Khan. “It is bad defeat for us because we’ve been very close to lifting the title in the last three years.
“The players are all gutted and most of them are down and out but it just simply wasn’t our day.”
Both teams started cautiously in the first-half as they tried to make sure that they didn’t concede an early goal. But as the half progressed, KESC’s striker Mohammad Rasool had a few chances.
But after they had repelled the first wave of attacks, NBP grew in confidence and Farooq Shah drew a smart save from Jahangir.
NBP started the second-half brighter and had the first few opportunities but KESC came back and Rasool went close to scoring the opener.
With the crucial goal not coming, KESC playmaker Mohammad Essa, who was an injury doubt, came on in the last twenty minutes of the game. But instead of Essa, it was Asif who scored the goal that proved decisive in the end.
