10-men Satya Vijaya Sports Club earn life-and-death win over disappointing Mangalore Blues

by Balbir Singh January 25, 2016

On Saturday evening, Satya Vijaya Sports Club pulled-off an all-important crucial three points by narrowly edging past Mangalore Blues Sports Club – with a soldier down in a battle of life-and-death – by 1-0 as number 10 Tushar Poojary scored the game’s solitary goal to earn maximum points.

Group ‘C’ runners-up with 8 points, Satya Vijaya S.C. were tied-up against Mangalore Blues S.C., who themselves were runners-up with 12 points in Group ‘A’ for the opening game of Group B for the Super League phase of 20th Late Shri Ramanath Payyade Memorial Football tournament 2015-16 on 23rd January 2016 at The Karnatak Sporting Association ground, Churchgate.

The match began in a frantic manner with Satya Vijaya’s stopper number 18 Senario Steven being part of a lot of the heat in the game as he saw himself booked for a reckless tackle in the 5th minute and within 2 minutes received a final warning from referee Lowis Fernandes. The warning didn’t benefit, and as Mangalore Blues S.C. began to attack, the cautioned center-back was lured into a number of one-on-ones before his sending-off in the 12th minute of the game; initiating an interminable number of attacks from Mangalore Blues S.C., which rarely shattered the Satya Vijaya defence, let-alone creating a certain goal-scoring opportunity.

The match didn’t have much in it as the first 10 minutes past-by without any noteworthy or rather memorable moment, and apart from the red card to Senario Steven in the first-half, the 30 minutes didn’t produce ample spells of dominance from either side to craft a goal or a scoring chance.

Half appalling chances from both the side were either saved by the two – largely, untroubled – goalkeepers or were finished-off in wayward fashion. As the half came to an end, Mangalore Blues S.C., who to an extend dominated with the ball, failed in getting its fruits as much of the possession was in midfield and defence, and not in the attacking-third.

Kelvin D’Souza of Mangalore Blues S.C. provided the first real-chance of the second-half with a long-range effort, which missed its destination by a tad. Most expected the goal drought wouldn’t be broken anytime soon with the score-line deadlocked as the game reached the last-10 minutes, but a strong shot to the near-post area from Tushar Poojary of Satya Vijaya in the 50th minute proved too well-founded for Raj Bangera in Mangalore Blues S.C.’s goal to handle.

The joy and enthusiasm of the staff and players of Satya Vijaya was unaccountable as they raised their hands in sheer glee; believing to have got a potential win out of a complete win-lose game for them.  Mangalore Blues S.C. seemed as-if they had seen themselves stumble to a such-type level on such a stage in such a situation for the very first-time, and rightly so.

As the referee blew the full-time whistle, the emotions were clear, and for Mangalore Blues S.C., who had lost five key squad-players in the Transfer Market, and had three regulars out of the game due to injury might have felt the end-result on the day was an underestimated one.