Kolkata: The AIFF Academy opened their IFA Shield campaign with a 2-1 win over East Bengal U-19 in Kolkata. Rahul Yadav scored a brace for the colts. AIFF opened the scoring in the 52nd off a Lalnuntluanga through ball before East Bengal equalised in the 59th by Vidyasagar Singh. The winner came in the 80th minute when Rahul got his second off a Joysana pass.
The opening game of the 121st IFA shield saw the Kolkata giant going down 1-2 to AIFF academy after playing some awful football. AIFF opened their account in the 52nd minute from a Rahul Jadav who dribbled past three defenders and scored the goal. However East Bengal equalized in the 59th minute with a goal from Vidyasagar singh. However in the 80th minute Rahul Jadav scored his brace and won the game for his team. The goal was due to a mistake from the East Bengal goalie Shovan Biswas who unnecessarily came out from his box and it was too easy from Rahul to put the ball at the back of the net.
These two sides met few days back in the final of the u-18 where AIFF Academy defeated the Red and gold side to become the champions. Although the Kolkata side became champions they performed really well throughout the tournament which was missing in today’s match. A main reason for the lack luster performance was absence of Mehtab Singh in the midfield.
Rahul Jadav was adjudged The Man of the Match for today’s game who played his second game against East Bengal. Jadav started his footballing career in 2010 when he was 8 years old. He played for the U-14 Karnataka team and then got a chance to play in U-14 Bengaluru Academy. He also got selected for the trials of U-17 trials for Indian team.
Rahul had a pretty sad childhood as his father passed away when he was only 5 years old and his mother left him for unknown years when he was 8. Since then he has been staying with his uncle and his grandfather. Living without parents is hard but Rahul is highly grateful to his uncle and his grandfather.
Rahul showed his tattoo to the Media after scoring his goals which had the imprint of his girlfriend Sheril. He also said that Sheril has asked him to score a hattrick against East Bengal which although he couldn’t score but is quite happy after scoring his brace. He dedicated his goals to his girlfriend.
East Bengal are scheduled to play their next IFA league match on Wednesday May 31st.