Mumbai Customs breeze past R.C.F in the Elite Division

by Siddharth Yadav January 31, 2016

Mumbai Customs got the better of R.C.F (Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers) 3-1 in their Mumbai District Football Association (MDFA) Elite Division encounter at Cooperage Stadium on Sunday afternoon.

Ashrafali Makandar opened the scoring early in the first-half before Deepak Irmali made it 2-0 at the stroke of half-time. Arvind Kanojia did pulled one back late in the second-half for R.C.F, but Rinaldo’s brilliance once again restored the parity for Mumbai Customs after a late solo goal.

Mumbai Customs made a dream start when it took them just 5 minutes to open the scoring. Ashrafali Makandar was in right place at the right time to bury his shot into the back of net from the edge of the box.

R.C.F seemed to be clueless in front of Mumbai Custom’s defender. The backline consistently kept on frustrating R.C.F’s forwards.

It took R.C.F almost half an hour to register their first shot on target. Sandeep Updahyay’s header rattled the bar, which was their best opportunity to equalize in the first-half.

Minutes later, Rinaldo Fernandes almost scored Mumbai Custom’s second goal of the game when his shot was cleared off from the line by Sandeep Upadhyay.

The last ten minutes of the first-half was dominated by Customs. Rinaldo Fernandes and Ashrafali Makandar, both came close to find the back of the net before Deepak Irmali finally scored Custom’s second goal of the game after a fantastic ball from Akshay Saptoji.

The goal came right at the stroke of half-time. R.C.F’s custodian Vatsal Bhatia failed to judge Deepak’s left footed strike as he saw his shot comfortably beating R.C.F’s number 1.

Mumbai Customs went into the break with a two goal advantage in hope to better their performance in the second-half.

It was no doubt that R.C.F were wasteful in front of the goal today. On the hour mark, Troy’s brilliantly taken corner was headed over the bar by Arvind Kanojia, who was surprisingly left unmarked by Customs.

Five minutes later, Arvind Kanojia once again failed to deal with Customs defense, as he wasted a great opportunity after a beautiful link-up play with Kevin Patrick.

R.C.F finally managed to pull one back in the stoppage time when Kevin Patrick was brought down by Sandesh puthran inside the box. Referee Rajesh Kanojia perfectly spotted the incident and awarded R.C.F with a penalty.

Arvind Kanojia stepped up and superbly placed his penalty into the top right corner to cut short the deficit.

With only a minute to go, Rinaldo Fernandes wrapped up the game, after a brilliant solo run straight from the half-line the striker comprehensively managed to beat the goalkeeper to give Mumbai Customs all three points.

It was a bad performance from R.C.F. Had they converted half of their chances the final result could have been much better.