There has always been a healthy rivalry between Union Bank of India and Air India, with a history that has always seen the top performers of UBI being recruited  in Air India. The likes of Steven Dias and Vijit Shetty in the past and Rohel Shaikh and Mervin Stephen this year, all products from the UBI setup.

UBI Coach Julian D’silva motivates his players with such positive energy that they give their hearts out while playing against a team like Air India. Being a more of a young and inexperienced side this season, the thought process of facing the defending league champions in their very first game certainly took them off .

Air India dominated the first half with many shots on target but were unable to break the deadlock, the best chance for Air India came in the 18^th minute, when a good move on top of the box ended up with a through ball for Sagar Chile, he took a touch forward and shot it straight onto the post, to all amusement referee Cajetan  Dias whistled for a goal, shocked by this officiating error, the UBI players protested the desicion but having confirmed with linesman Sidharth Shrivastav, the referee disallowed the goal and play continued.

UBI centreback Tejas Raut had a busy day at the office, as he blocked off Air India’s attack on various occasions and stood tall in the UBI defence,  keeping his team in the game. Union bank then came up with an attack of their own in the 38^th minute, when Aaron D’Costa initiated a scoring move by playing a ball across to Chetan Tandel, who nicely positioned himself in the box and decieved the Air India defence with a clever back heel pass to Shannon Pereira who fired a rasping shot past the Air India goalkeeper only to be denied by the cross bar.

After making a few goal scoring attempts, finally  Air India took their chance in 44^th minute, when a corner kick taken by Yogesh Rawat was cleared away by the UBI defence only for the ball to fall at the feet of Wayne Vaz, who controlled well and drilled a shot into the back of the net. Air india were much relieved going into the lemon break with a 1 goal lead

In the 2^nd half UBI got back into the game much more confident and kept more of the ball possession. Whereas Air India kept stacking up their missed chances, UBI later came close to grabbing an equalizer, a wonderful cross by  Pratik Koli provided an opportunity for Manish Koli, who put his shot well wide of the Air India goal.

Union Bank looked menacing in the closing moments of the game, in injury time Pankaj Koli played a good through ball along the ground which beat the entire Air India defence, Pratik made a clever run to anticipate the ball but Air India goalkeeper Rahul Chadha did well to come off his line and collect the ball bravely denying UBI a last gasp equalizer.

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HDFC Bank and Hearts FC players chasing for the boll

HDFC kept the ball possession and dominated the midfield throughout the game. Dennis Menezes one of the most experienced campaigners, lead their midfield with his effective distribution, along with former Customs & Mumbai FC player Nelson Cardoz, were the striking force for HDFC. Keeping the momentum right from the kickoff whistle they got the lead just after 4 minutes of play. The HDFC scoring account was opened by the very skilled Nelson Cardoz. Their lead did not last long though, within the next 4 minutes Heart FC equalized the score with a neat finish by Jeevan Jain. It was the only effective move that Hearts FC had initiated, most of time they were busy defending the ferocious HDFC attack, till the end of first half HDFC had a 3 goal lead. Rakesh Yadav and Blaise Fernandes scored the 2nd and 3rd goals respectively.

The 2nd half was evenly poised, both teams were likely to score, but HDFC looking to make the most of the lessons learnt from last season were all out to better their goal average. For HDFC, Siddharth Puthran is a key element on the right wing, his contribution met its worth in the final 10 minutes of the game, he took a long-range shot which hit the crossbar bar and the rebound set up an easy opportunity for Jayesh Naik to tap in the 4th goal.

Hearts FC player controlling a ball

Results from the other 2nd division and 1st division matches played at St. Xavier’s Ground, Parel

2nd Division : Classic SC beat Joshua Generation [1-0]. Shaikh Tarique scored all-important winning goal for Classic SC.

1st Division : Chedda Nagar Fanatics beat Vintage, Dahisar [1-0]. Ferdinand D’cruz.

2nd Division : FC MIthanagar drew with Dadar XI “B” [3-3]

FC MIthanagar => 1st goal – Yash Salvi 19th min, 2nd goal – Priyesh Chalkar 24th min, 3rd goal – Siddharth Sindhe 74th min.

Dadar XI “B” => 1st goal – Rohan Shukla 35th min, 2nd goal – Faizal Khan 47th min, 3rd goal – Edric Fernandes 68th min

2nd Division : Century Rayon beat Gokul Mitra Mandal [3-0]
Century Rayon => Ashwin Thak, Chihan Khamrang, Sunny Janyani

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