Nuha Marong gives Kings winning start in AFC Cup

Bashundhara Kings survived a second-half scare to make a winning start in the AFC Cup with a 1-0 win over Maziya S&RC in the second Group D encounter at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata on Wednesday.

Gambian forward Nuha Marong struck the all-important goal in the 33rd minute in the keenly contested match to keep their all-win record against the Maldivian outfits in the second-tier tournament of Asia intact.

Group favourites ATK Mohun Bagan earlier were beaten 4-2 by Gokulam Kerala in the opener.

The Bangladesh Premier League champions got off to a fine start against a side they beat 2-0 last season, but the charges of Oscar Bruzon were put under tremendous pressure by the Maldivian outfit in the second half.

Kings created three good chances in the first 15 minutes, with Robson Robinho's freekick coming off the post in the 11th minute before Miguel Figueira was denied twice.

Maziya, though, mountd pressure on the Bangladeshi outfit and came close to breaking the deadlock but goalkeeper Anisur Rahman Zico frustrated forward Cornelius Ezekiel, who even raced past defender Khalid inside the box while Zico punched out a Hamza Mohamed drive a few minutes later.

Nuha broke the deadlock in the 33rd minute, heading home a long-ball from Sohel Rana before Maziya saw Cornelius and Naiz Hassan squander two chances. 

Kings could have widened the margin in the 45th minute but Robinho, despite dancing past two players, floated the ball over the crossbar from the six-yard box.

After resumption, Maziya mounted huge pressure to expose the backline of the Bashundhara Kings with Tareq Kazi struggling in the right-back position. Khalid Shafiei and Bishwanath Ghosh made some good blocks to keep Kings in the match before Oscar Bruzon sent Matin Mia and Suman Reza in place of Mohammad Ibrahim and Nuha to ease the pressure in the 70th minute.

In the dying minutes, Bangladesh's naturalised forward Eleta Kingsley made his AFC Cup debut and a couple of moves from him kept the Maziya defenders busy before the referee blew the final whistle.