Shillong, May 7: Rangdajied United FC and Shillong Lajong FC will clash in the first semifinal of the Shillong Premier League 2023 at the SSA Stadium at First Ground, Polo, today. Kick-off is at 3:15PM.
Rangdajied finished the round robin stage of the tournament in first place with 18 points, suffering just one defeat (to Langsning FC) but this came after they had already confirmed first place for themselves.
Lajong, on the other hand, held first place for three rounds before slipping to second and then third place behind Mawlai SC.
Mawlai and Langsning will meet in the second semifinal tomorrow at the same time and venue.
Lajong have lost twice this season, first to Rangdajied before getting whipped by defending champions Mawlai.
Still, it’s been a solid performance from SLFC, who have gotten this far with very few of their I-League players. Although they haven’t been able to confidently lock down on a goalkeeper, they’ve been stellar at the front with the partnership of Babysunday Marngar and Deibormame Tongper, the latter who is the SPL 2023 top scorer with eight goals.
It’s been a pretty youthful RUFC this season too, though, and they’ve gone about things the Rangdajied way – ie without setting the league on fire. The Blues have scored just 14 goals, the fewest of any of the Top 4. In fact, other than the 4-0 thrashing of Ryntih SC, they haven’t had anything more than a one goal margin of victory in any of their other five wins.
The Meghalaya State League 2023 champions, who were also SPL runners-up in 2022, do things carefully – they’re expert at passing the ball around and holding possession. It can be a bit boring but it’s effective. Apart from the game against Langsning where they conceded half a dozen, Rangdajied had only let in five goals in six games, the lowest of any club this year.
Like we mentioned earlier, Lajong have had goalkeeping issues but Wanteilang Malngiang has done pretty well in the last couple of matches. They’ve only been able to keep one clean sheet in seven matches, however, so we should see some goals in 90 minutes.
(File photo)
