AIFF Senior Women’s football championship.
Maharashtra went down fighting to Manipur 1-3 in a keenly contested Group-B match of the AIFF 27th Senior Women National Football Championship 2022-2023, played at the GNDU ground, Amritsar, Punjab. Heigrujam Daya Devi scored twice in the second half after Dangmei Grace had opened the scoring for Manipur, while Arya More struck Maharashtra’s lone goal in the first half, according to information received.
The Sanaya Anklesaria-coached Maharashtra outfit played with plenty of grit and determination and put up a good fight against the fancied Manipur side. However, Manipur knocked the fight out of the Maharashtra women with two quick goals in the second half and helped the team make a winning start.
Manipur took the lead through Grace who hit the target in the 24th minute. Maharashtra took that setback in their stride and fought on gamely and 10 minutes managed to restore parity with More finding the back of the Manipur net and got into the break on level terms.
However, immediately on resumption, Manipur’s energetic striker Devi scored her first and the team’s second goal in the 47th minute and seven minutes later she was in the thick of action scoring her second goal to give Manipur a 3-1 lead which they maintained till the final whistle to emerge victorious.
Maharashtra’s next match is against Haryana on Sunday.
In the other two group matches, West Bengal blanked Himachal Pradesh 4-0 and Haryana got the better of Railways by a fighting 2-1 margin.
Result: Manipur 3 (Dangmei Grace 24th min, Heigrujam Daya Devi 47th & 54th mins) beat Maharashtra 1 (Arya More 34th min).