O’Sheish sets up Semi-Final clash with KSA, SSR Sporting wins huge

by Spandan Paul February 24, 2018

23^rd Feb, 2018 – While O’Sheish FC and KSA set up a semi-final clash,beating Holy Cross United and Khiladi Connect FC respectively in 3^rd division, SSR SS registered a huge 9 goal victory in 2^nd division. Let’s take a recap of all the 6 matches that happened in St. Xaviers,Parel in the last two days.

3^rd division Q/F – O’Sheish FC ( Faizan 32’, Rahil 47’) 2-1 Holy Cross United ( Allwyn 37’)

Friday evening unfurled a beautiful game of football when O’Sheish FC met Holy Cross United in the quarter final of play-off. It promised to be a cracker of a match, as both the teams were one of the most consistent teams and deemed favourites to lift the trophy. The battle of speed and precision started as soon as the whistle blew with both the teams looking for an early goal to pressurise the opposition. The first real chance came Holy Cross’ way when the experienced playmaker Albert Gogai, after breaking free from the left flank provided a beautiful cross to Remy Fernandez; whose header hit the crossbar to deny the opening goal.

O’ Sheish retaliated back with full force as they tried to break down a strong Holy Cross backline with the help of incisive runs from both the flanks but couldn’t change the score line, as it remained goalless going into the half. Second half started with the famous reminiscence to the “Flying Dutchman” goal by Van Persie in 2014 FIFA World Cup against Spain as O’Sheish drew the first blood. It was an exquisite piece of move which was initiated by Shervin Sooren in the middle of the pitch; as he passed onto his right to Rahil Damani, who provided an aerial ball to his left, in front, which was met by a diving Faizan Shaikh to send a looping header past the stranded Holy Cross goalie. The crowd erupted in wild celebration as they too acknowledged the breezy run taken by Faizan, sniffing the chance, all of a sudden.

Five minutes later Holy Cross responded back in style  through Allwyn D’Souza when he tapped in a header after all the hard work done by Lara Gonsalves , taking out couple O’sheish defenders through the right flank before assisting with a pinpoint pass to his left at the far post. It was end to end stuff following the equalizer as both the teams tried to seal the clash with  a winner. Just when it seemed shoot-out is pretty much on the cards O’Sheish snatched out a winner at the fag end of the match.

It was a rare momentary mistake from an otherwise technically sound Ruark D souza, the Holy Cross centre back, as he made a weak backpass which was snatched by the onrushing Faizan Shaikh who skipped past the goalie with a deft touch at the top of the box. Amsten Rodrigues chased Faizan till 5 yards from the goalline and inflicted a desperate foul on the O’Sheish forward to gift them a golden chance to seize the game. Amsten got marching orders as Rahil Damani calmly made it 2-1 from the spot-kick with the clock ticking past 48th minute.

It was indeed the elusive winner which both the teams were looking for, since 10-men Holy Cross failed to equalize in the remaining few minutes. While it was a massive heartbreak for Holy Cross, O’Sheish qualified to the semis with their eyes on the trophy already.

3^rd Division Q/F – KSA (Sagar 35’, 40) 2-1 Khiladi Connect FC (Clayton 11’p)

In another quarter final fixture in 3^rd division KSA faced Khiladi Connect FC . It was another cracker of a match where KSA edged out Khiladi Connect FC scoring twice, coming from behind ,after KNFC drew the first blood through a spotkick conversion by Clayton Pereira in the 11^th minute, after he was brought down by the KSA keeper in an one on one situation . But KSA came back with vengeance in the second half  and equalized  10 minutes into the half  via Sagar Sorathi header. 5 minutes later Sagar scored from the spotkick, given due to a handball in the D-box, and completes a fairy-tale comeback for KSA. With this win KSA set up a mouth-watering semi-final clash with O’sheish FC; as 3^rd division continues to pile on their final instalment of excitement.

2^nd Division, Group B –

SRS Sporting Skills PVT Ltd (Ashish 12’ 15’ 43’ 69’ 70’,Naveen 39’,Milind 45’, Kunal 53’) 9-0  Bombay Disabled  

In group B fixture of second division, SRS Sporting Skills surged to the top of the group after humbling Bombay Disabled by 9 goals, in what was their 6^th win of the campaign. It was a stupendous performance by Ashish Dage who fired in 5 goals along with one each by Naveen Kumar, Milind Khandakar and Kunal Done. Bombay Disabled never seemed to pose any trouble to SRS SS, as the later surpassed Lakers FC at the top of the standings with 19 points in 7 matches.

2^nd division – Feugo Tormeto (Karan 7’ Halde 66’) 2-2 Tata Power (Ricky 31’ 51’)

It was an action packed game on Thursday when Feugo Tormento squared off against Tata power. Feugo Tormento needed a victory desperately to stay in the contention for qualifying further and started the match in aggressive manner. They opened the scoring in the 7^th minute itself through a corner when Karan Gidwani headed into the right top corner of the net, but Tata Power came back strongly enough. The Bagade brothers, Ricky and Jay leaded the way as they combined pretty well and spelt danger in Tormento box. Ricky first capitalised on a rare defensive error from Feugo backline, to restore the parity in the 31^st minute and completed his brace 20 minutes later. Abhishek Halde brought Feugo Tormento back on level just 4 minutes prior to the final whistle and tried their best to score a winner but lost out to time as the chances now look very grim for them to qualify for the play-off stage.

2^nd Division, Group H –  Silver Inninngs FC 0-0 CSL

In a 2^nd division fixture, third placed Silver Innings and fourth placed CSL played out a goalless stalemate to split the points equally. Both the teams remained static in the standings but gained a point in the process as Silver Linings now have 15 points from 7 matches ,while CSL icreased their points tally to 12 in same no. of matches.

1^st Division, Group C – Rhino FC( Rensen ,Sunil 80’) 2-0 Tarun Sporting Club

In 1^st Division, group B Rhino FC caused a huge upset when they overcame the group topper Tarun Sporting Club owing to twin strikes by Rensen Patel and Sunil Sawan . This result will cause significant changes in the group. While Rhino FC leapfrogged from 6^th position to 4^th, Tarun Sporting club is set to drop their top spot to Wellington Catholic Gymkhana as both are tied with 13 points, but the later has one less match to their name.