Day 9: Chandigarh and Malaysia unstoppable; SAI bounce back

The Sports Authority of India (East) team bounced back today after a stinging reverse yesterday when they defeated St Xavier’s School boys from Ahmedabad 5-0 in pool E even as the Maharana Pratap Sports College, Raipur (Dehradun) continued their dominance in pool G in the ongoing 57th Subroto Cup International Football Tournament at the NWC grounds here today...

The scene at Ambedkar Stadium was heady with the Government Model School boys from Chandigarh humiliating the boys from Nirmalamata High School (Daman & Diu) with 18-0 score-line. With just a match against St Xavier’s (Gujarat), the Chandigarh boys seemed to have strengthened their quarterfinal claim in pool E. Continuing their winning ways in pool H, Malaysian outfit NFDP (National Football Development Programme) all set to top their pool when they scored second successive win over Delhi with a 7-0 verdict with Najumuddin and Sayazvi scoring two goals each with contributions from teammates at Ambedkar Stadium. In an earlier match the same venue, Government Middle School from Kolasib (Mizoram) blanked out Saifai Sports College from Ettawah (UP) downed 4-0 in pool F. L. Sanga (2), Abraham and Remsang Puia scored for the winners. The Dehradun outfit and NCC Directorate (Odisha), who beat Sainik School from Imphal 3-0, have two wins each in pool G and it will be interesting to know who qualifies from the pool. Meghalaya’s Lawmei Secondary School scrapped past Navodaya from Manipur 2-1 in pool F. Of the morning matches, at least one stood out for quality when IPSC gave a real tough time, thanks to their striker Dorjee who held on to whatever came his way to fire in to reduce the morning. In fact, it was Dorjee put IPSC in the fourth minute when he waded through a defensive wall to draw first blood. Ten minutes later Yash Bisht equalized. Dorjee added one more to their tally in the 25th minute but their joy was short-lived when Yash converted a penalty soon after following a counter-attack. With teams’ fortune in balance, it was time for Wajid Ali to strike for Maharana Pratap Sports College two minutes later with Ajay Arya put the issue beyond IPSC. As for SAI, their boys recovered well after a loss yesterday to beat the Gujarat team in what turned out to be a one-sided affair as Sanjay Soken and S.K. Boypai struck a brace each with J. Subba joining the party. But it was a pathetic show by the Daman & Diu school as they were exposed to a goal-glut by the Chandigarh Model School boy as Karan, Balraj and Lovepreet scored three times each but none was able to complete a hat-trick as Taison (2), Sibajit and Shabay also contributed in a team cause, the only exception was Govind who scored five goals which included a hat-trick as he was the one who started a goal-spree. The Odisha boys from NCC Directorate proved too good for the Sainik School players from Manipur with Beker Oram, Thnkhadar Bag and Sameer scoring once each—all goals coming in the second session while Meghalaya passed the muster with P. Khypzen’s brace against Navodaya School (Manipur) despite J. Maite pulling one back for them. [KH_RELATED_NEWS title="Related News"][/KH_RELATED_NEWS]