SC Delhi put seven past the Air Force and go through as Group C winners
Seven goals from six different scorers in Ranchi, and a group stage finished without dropping a point. SC Delhi are into the Durand Cup quarter-finals.
Aug 11, 2026
SC Delhi finished the Durand Cup group stage the way they started it, by scoring more goals than anyone knew what to do with. They beat Indian Air Force FT 7-1 at the Birsa Munda Stadium in Ranchi on Monday evening and went through to the quarter-finals as winners of Group C, with three wins from three and nine points.
Seven goals, six scorers
Rodriguinho got the first in the 11th minute. Juan Sebastián Peña added the second before the interval and finished with two. Samuel K. Vanlalpeka pulled one back for the Air Force early in the second half with a curled finish, and that was the last good thing that happened to them.
Duvan Mina, Lalrinliana Hnamte, Clarence Savio Fernandes and Richard Ndayishimiye all got on the scoresheet after the break, some of them from set pieces. Six different names on seven goals is not the profile of a side leaning on one striker, which is the detail worth carrying into the knockouts.
Sixteen goals in three games
This is a debut of sorts. The club played in this tournament as Hyderabad FC, but under the SC Delhi name they had never entered it before, and they have made the introduction count: 2-1 against Jamshedpur, 7-0 against Defenders FC, 7-1 on Monday. Sixteen scored, two conceded, nine points.
The Jamshedpur game was the one that told you most about them. They went behind to Sanan Mohammed in the 22nd minute on a pitch left slippery by a thunderstorm, and Lalrinliana Hnamte, making his debut for the club, scored in the 51st and 56th minutes to turn it around. Asia’s oldest football tournament runs through pre-season, when squads are half-built and clubs rotate hard, and a side that can win from behind in those conditions travels well into a knockout round.
Group C is not finished yet
Second place is still live. Jamshedpur FC beat the Sri Lankan debutants Defenders FC 5-0 but lost to Delhi, and they need a result from their last group match to stay in the tournament. Indian Air Force sit third on three points from two games, having beaten Defenders 2-1 earlier in the group, and they play Jamshedpur on 13 August with their own qualification hopes still technically alive.
The format helps. Group winners go through automatically and the two best runners-up join them, so second place in Group C is worth more than it looks.
What comes next
The quarter-finals are on 16 and 17 August, with the semi-finals on 19 and 20 August. Delhi will not know who they get until the remaining groups finish, and on Monday’s evidence they are the tie nobody in the last eight will want.