Mumbai FC U20 emerge winners of The Nitu Mandke Invitation Cup 2016

by Prasad bhutkar January 26, 2016

Mumbai FC U20 were crowned the champions of The Nitu Mandke Invitation Cup 2016 defeating Air India U19 5-4 on penalties at St Xavier’s ground Parel.It was sponsored by the Colaba Sports League.

Mumbai FC U20 got past ICL A and HDFC on their road to the final whereas Air India U19 defeated Young Boys and Century Rayon. The final lived upto its expectations after going till the penalty shootouts. And Mumbai FC held their nerves to lift the trophy.

The FINAL as it happened:
Mumbai FC U-20 came into the match as underdogs with everyone favoring Air India U-19 to win the final. And they were on the front foot from the very first minute when number 9 Digvijay Yadav flicked a shot towards goal from the left which was saved by the keeper. A foul at the edge of the area in the 8th minute saw Number 10 Prince take a freekick. The shot was deflected and went inside the goal giving Mumbai the lead. From then on Mumbai U20 were on the frontfoot.  Air India U19 pressed in the final minutes of the first half and they were successful in equalising with a few minutes to go. Sumesh Nair was able to score a tap in after the left back number 2 Aashish Lalge was able to cut in from the left. At half time the score remained 1-1.

The second half saw both the teams go on the front foot for the winner. But none of them could capitalise on each others mistake. In the dying minutes of the second half Mumbai FC’s number 10 Prince had a chance to score the winner from  a freekick but it was brilliantly saved by the Air India keeper. At fulltime the teams were deadlocked at 1-1 and the finale would be decided on penalties.

For Mumbai FC: Dhurwesh Nijap, Raj Gurav, Prince Anandraj, Digvijay Yadav and Yogesh Kadam all successfully scored their penalties while Qais Khan’s penalty was saved by the keeper.

For Air India :Aashish Lalge, Vinod Pandey, Gautam Medikonda and Pravin Mali score their penalties whereas Andrew Silva and Charmel Delmeida missed their penalties which proved costly for Air India.

Yogesh Kadam’s penalty proved to be the winner that won Mumbai FC U20 The Nitu Mandke Invitation Cup.

The overall tournament proved to be a success as all the teams played in the true spirit of the game. One of the positive points of this cup was that the youth players involved were in majority. A true sign of the amount of talent in our city and most importantly our country. Looking forward to many more tournaments like these.

Football Counter congratulates Mumbai FC U20 on emerging the winners of the Nitu Mandke Invitation Cup 2016