Third Edition of the Vakola Football League kicks-off!

by Balbir Singh January 18, 2016

The third edition of the Vakola Football League inaugurated at the St. Anthony’s ground under the watchful eyes and blessings of the Parish Father Anthony D’Souza from Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Church. The Vakola Football League began with words of kindness, affection and passion from Father Anthony D’Souza as he welcomed the 14 participating teams to the tournament and the turn-out of spectators at the venue.

Played with seven on-field players and five rotating substitutes, the tournament is divided in 2 groups of 7 – Pool ‘A’ and Pool ‘B’. Previous edition’s winners Soccer Raiders are in Pool ‘A’, whereas winners of the first edition of the league, D-Boys are in Pool ‘B’. The top-2 teams from each pool will qualify for the semi-final round of the league, which is scheduled to be played on the same day as the final – around February end. The league will be played on Sundays and on bank holidays, and is set to resume on the 24^th of January 2016 from 8:00 a.m. onwards.

Pool ‘A’:
Soccer Raiders A
Soccer Raiders B
Vakola United A
Rising Stars
Stunning Strikers
Zigzag
Victorious Secret

Pool ‘B’:
D-Boys
Vakola United B
Galacticos
Game Kings
F.C. Nirvana
Holy Cross Soccer Club
Outpost United

The opening day of the Vakola Football League saw 12 teams contest to produce an opening day victory to get an early edge in a tightly contested league, but only Holy Cross and Game Kings could provide the spark to get the better of their respective opposition in a fairly dominant way in terms of performance on the field if not goalscoring.

A total of just 6 goals were scored on the opening day with three goalless draw amongst the total of six games played. All the six matches played displayed great resilience at the back as most sides approached to play cautiously and defend their leads than built upon it as each half was played for 10 minutes. This resulted in a lackluster of goals, but not the number of chances created and nail-biting action as the goalkeepers from either side were the busiest of players on the field.

The 1-1 draw between Rising Stars and Stunning Strikers was the highlight match of the day. Both sides set-out to attack from minute one and create certain goal-scoring opportunities from the start of the game. Stunning Strikers having started the game brightly fell short to convert the chances and went behind to a Rohan Shinde strike for Rising Stars early on the first-half. In the second half of the game, which was equally contested seemed to produce no fruitful end result as Stunning Strikers became more desperate for an equalizing goal. Katkul Aanna, who had missed-out a couple of chances throughout the game found himself in an acute goal scoring angle in the last-minute of the game, making sure he converted this chances, he smashed a volleyed past the goalkeeper without the latter moving an inch.

Other results:
Soccer Raiders A 0-0 Soccer Raiders B
D-Boys 0-0 Vakola United B
Rising Stars (Rohan Shinde) 1-1 Stunning Strikers (Katkul Aanna)
Game Kings (Jackson Coelho, Own Goal) 2-1 Outpost United (Robert R.)
Vakola United A 0-0 Zig Zag
Nirvana FC 0-1 Holy Cross (Remedious D’Souza).