Bhubaneswar, Feb 14 (PTI) Karnataka and Punjab’s victories in Group A league matches of the National Football Championships for the Santosh Trophy on Tuesday set them apart from the chasing pack, with two rounds left to play here.

A clinical Karnataka beat Goa 2-0, while Punjab edged hosts Odisha 2-1.

In the day’s third game, defending champions Kerala came from behind to draw 4-4 with Maharashtra and keep their hopes to qualify for the knockouts alive.

The semi-finals, third-place play-off and final will be played in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, from March 1-4.

The top two sides from each of the six-team two groups will make it to the semi-finals.

In the first match of the day, Punjab found the target through Jang Bahadur Singh (75th) and Kamaldeep (82nd) while Odisha pulled one back through Anand Oram (90+3).

Punjab now need one win from their remaining two matches — against Kerala and Goa — to make it to the semi-finals.

In the second match of the day, Karnataka beat Goa 2-0 through goals from Jacob John Kattookaren (33rd) and Abhishek Shankar Powar (50th).

Kerala then scraped a point by coming back from a three-goal deficit in a high-scoring encounter at Kalinga Stadium in the third match of the day.

Sufiyan Sheikh (17th), Himanshu Patil (20th), Sumit Bhandari (34th) and Tejas Raut (42nd) scored for Maharashtra while Vishak Mohanan (38th), Nijo Gilbert (66th), V Arjun (70th) and John Paul Jose (77th) found the target for Kerala.

The draw virtually knocked Maharashtra out of contention for a semi-final spot and kept Kerala’s slim hopes alive.

Maharashtra went into the break leading 4-1 and seemingly having wrapped up the match. But Kerala’s resurgence started with a Nijo Gilbert penalty, before two more goals set up the draw.

Source: PTI News