Bhubaneswar: Sreebhumi FC put paid to defending champions Odisha FC’s sojourn in the Indian Women’s League with a 3-0 victory at the Kalinga Stadium here on Wednesday.
Odisha needed to eke out a result to even stand a chance at staying up, and within the first half an hour their fate was sealed, courtesy of a Nongmeikapam Shibani Devi (10’, 18’, 32’) hat trick.
This was the first time in Indian women’s football history that the defending champions of a league have been relegated.
Despite the one-sided scoreline, it was Odisha who actually looked in the ascendancy in the first 10 minutes of the game, marshalling the ball neatly in midfield.
In the 10th minute though, Sreebhumi’s scoring spree kicked off, when Shibani picked up Anita Kumari’s cross outside the box and unleashed a right footer towards the goal. The shot took a deflection before nestling in the back of the net.
A double hammer blow in the 18th and 32th minute effectively finished off the game — and Odisha’s chances of survival. For her second, Shibani displayed an unteachable poacher’s instinct, to sneak in at the back post and volley in Anita’s cross from inside the six-yard box.
The third goal came off a massive error at the back for Odisha FC. The combination of first defender and goalkeeper failed to deal with a routine cross from the right, the latter spilling it loose inside the six-yard box. Shibani duly tapped it in.
