IFA, however, did not pay any heed to McDowell Mohun Bagan's request and scheduled the 1st round match of Mariners today at the Salt Lake Stadium. McDowell Mohun Bagan, however, had already informed IFA that they will be unable to play today's match.

Mariners instead played a practice match against Army XI today in club ground which they won by a big margin of 6 goals to nil. Odafa Okolie scored a brace while Tolgay Ozbey, Stanley, Bijendra Rai and Sabeeth scored 1 goal each.

The 1st team was as follows: Arindam Bhattacharya, Aiborlang Khongjee, Anyichie Echezona, Mehrajuddin, Lalrozama Fanai, Manish Bharghav, Rakesh Masih, Stanley Okoroigwe, Snehasish Chakraborty, Odafa Okolie and Tolgay Ozbey.

Mariners scored 4 goals in the first half. The best goal of the half was scored by Tolgay Ozbey. He scored the goal in his trademark style of running down the left flank and then unleashing a powerful shot that bulged the net. Odafa found the back of the net twice and Stanley scored 1 goal before the lemon break.

Post-breather, keeping Anyichie and Tolgay in the team, coach Santosh Kashyap made 9 changes. The 2nd half team was as follows: Shilton, Mohan Sarkar, Anyichie Echezona, Rajib Ghosh, Biswajit Saha, Arjun Chatterjee, Denson Devadas, Manish Maithani, Bijendra Rai, Anil Kumar and Tolgay Ozbey. Sabeeth and Mehrajuddin later came on as replacement of Tolgay Ozbey and Anyichie Echezona.

In the 2nd half, Sabeeth and Bijendra Rai increased the lead. Getting a pass from Anil Kumar, Sabeeth placed the ball inside goal past goalkeeper. Bijendra Rai scored a nice goal as his powerful shot from edge of the box found the back of the net.