Sluggish second half sees Great Mother S.C hold Union Bank of India

by Kaushal Shukla April 27, 2015

Great Mother Sports Club (GMSC) and Union Bank of India (UBI) played out a patchy 1-1 draw in the Elite Division of the Mumbai District Football Association (MDFA) at Cooperage on 27th April 2015.

The game got off to a flier with both teams showing great intensity in their play and it took just seven minutes for UBI to make the quick start count when Khalid Siddhique fired them into the lead with a neatly taken goal.

But that did not deter GMSC who managed to keep up their tempo despite going a goal down to a strong looking UBI side.

And they were duly rewarded in the 20th minute when Hasan Golwala restored parity for GMSC to make it 1-1 with seventy minutes more to play.

The game was nicely set up for a cracking contest but with the hot and humid conditions, the players struggled to keep up the high tempo as caution also sneaked its way through into the player’s minds.

Both teams went into the break level pegging and with everything to play for in the second half of the game.

The second half was similar to the latter stages of the first half where the teams struggled to build any kind of inroads in the respective rear guards. GMSC were looking the sharper of the two sides in the initial period of the second half but lacked the killer pass to open UBI up.

There was a controversy in the game around the hour mark when GMSC manager Alok Thakker, clearly displeased with the referee’s decision to award UBI a free kick blasted the referee and threatened to physically assault referee Prasad Bhosale. Alok was asked to go to the stands and despite some early protests, Alok calmed down and made his way to the stands after his player’s controlled the situation well before it got out of hand.

Great Mother S.C continued to look threatening and missed a glorious opportunity in the 77th minute, when a clever piece of play from Michael Idewele set up Hasan Golwala who stroked his effort wide despite having just the goalkeeper to beat.

The missed chance seemed to play on GMSC’s mind as they resigned the control of the game to Union Bank of India during the game’s final exchanges. The GMSC custodian Kartik Puthran had to be alert when he punched a Pankaj Koli free kick in the 84th minute over the crossbar.

UBI had a great chance to snatch the win in the final minute of the game when a breath taking counter attack left GMSC heavily short in numbers at the back after substitute Shanon Pereira raced clear to set up fellow substitute Nasicmento Santiago through on goal, but the latter failed to make a telling connection as the chance went begging.

Shanon Pereira was instrumental in UBI’a late pressure after he made a positive impact after coming on as a substitute.

But he couldn’t give UBI all three points as the referee signalled the end of the game which meant GMSC and UBI shared the spoils in a fairly even contest.