Mumbai & Nagpur storm into the last eight

by Kaushal Shukla December 12, 2015

It is down to eight teams in the Maharashtra Inter District Football Championship for Sub-Junior Boys held in Nashik after the pre-quarter final round was concluded on Saturday. The day saw the big boys of Maharashtra Football enter the fray and they had mixed fortunes at the end of the pre-quarter final matches. Mumbai and Nagpur roared to big wins, while Jalgaon and Kolhapur were knocked after some late drama in their matches.

Mumbai recorded the biggest win of the day as they thrashed Chandrapur 7-0 in the fourth pre-quarter final game of the day. However it wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Mumbaikars as the Chandrapur outfit made it very difficult for them in the first half which ended with Mumbai leading only 1-0 thanks to a Ridge D’mello strike in the 26^th minute. Mumbai scored their second goal in the 44^th minute through Lance Fernandes and that opened the floodgates as Fernandes scored again two minutes later to make it 3-0. Later goals from Ridge D’Mello, a brace from Manan Dang and a goal from Utkarsh Rawat made it a final score of 7-0 in Mumbai’s favour.

Nagpur too eased into the Quarter Finals after thumping Hingoli 5-0. Furkan Raza netted a brace for Nagpur while Abrar Mohammed, Anas Ansari and Nikhil Durge scored a goal each for the team from the city of oranges. In the last game of the day, Pune District overcame Ahmednagar 1-0 courtesy of a Chaitanya Advani penalty in the second half just minutes after Ahmednagar had their goal ruled out for offside.

Jalna too raised a few eyebrows when they had no problems dispatching a Thane side 3-0, with Karan Waghmare, Anas Khan and Ankit Nirmal getting on the scoresheet for the central Maharashtrian district. Hosts Nashik dished out yet another superb performance in their 3-1 success over Beed in the pre-quarters as Rutig Ahirrao and Bindusar Chaudhary scored for a third game in a row helping the home side to book a Quarter Final place.

Kolhapur and Satara served an absolute thriller to kick off proceedins on Day three of the competition, with Satara scoring two goals in the last five minutes to overturn a 2-1 deficitto win 3-2. Yashvardhan More scored the winner for Satara taking his tally for the competition to eight goals as he added on to goals from Rohan More and Dhananjay Kadam for Satara. But Kolhapur’s young and tiny forward line caught the eye of the spectators as they terrorized the Satara defence in the first half. Siddhik Naikewade and Omkar Chougale scored the goals for Kolhapur.

Akola too came from behind to beat a spirited Sangli side 2-1, with goals from Sufiyan Shaikh and Gufran Khan cancelling out Leon Leni’s opener for Satara. Gondia produced the biggest upset of the tournament when they knocked out Jalgaon after a 2-1 win. Ashraf Qureshi opened the scoring for Gondia only for Jalgaon to hit back through Suraj who fired a fine free kick, five minutes from time. But Gondia’s Sahil Sujroya popped up with the winner with virtually the last kick of the game to send Gondia into the Quarters.

The tournament will have a break on Sunday before the Quarter Finals will take place on Monday.

Here is the Quarter Final Line-up

1. Satara vs Mumbai
2. Jalna vs Nagpur
3. Nashik vs Akola
4. Gondia vs Pune