After a goalless first-half, a goal each from Ayaan Desai and Meherzad in the second-half helped Anthony Fernandes’ side to take the title home.

St. Pius X made a brilliant start. They dominated their counterparts for the majority the first-half. They looked dangerous in counterattacks and in the final third. But poor finishing turned out to be costly for the Mulund-based side.

Mandar Palav and Neel Kadam had a brilliant first-half for St. Pius X. Although Bombay Scottish’s strong defensive pair of Siddharth Singh and Druv Vazirani denied any problems for the eventual winners.

The second-half saw Bombay Scottish stepping up their game. After a mediocre first-half, Bombay Scottish made a strong comeback in the second.

A huge goalkeeping error by St. Pius X’s Chinmay Shirke saw Ayaan Desai taking the advantage and scoring from the close range to give Bombay Scottish a vital lead.

St. Pius X went all in the last fifteen minutes of the game. Failing to convert their chances into the goal, a brilliant counter-attack move by Bombay Scottish was executed brilliantly by Meherzad in the dying minutes.

Meherzad received the ball possession near the halfway line, the number 8 danced past couple of defenders to unleash a deadly left footed strike straight into the back of the net. The goal gave Bombay Scottish two goals advantage and helped them secure the MSSA U16 Division II title.

Third place match: Don Bosco ‘B’ 2-1 St. Lawrence
Kush and Atharva scored for Don Bosco ‘B’, whereas, Rishikesh scored the lone goal for St. Lawrence.

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St. Pius X caused a major upset in the first semi-final as they narrowly edged past the favourites Don Bosco ‘B’ (Matunga) 1-0, courtesy of a late strike by Tanishq Adrian.

Meanwhile, in the second semi-final, Bombay Scottish produced a fantastic performance to rout St. Lawrence (Borivali) 3-0 to book their place in the final. Pranay Chaudhary, Ayaan Desai and Druv Vazirani scored one each to complete a comfortable victory.

The first semi-final between St. Pius X and Don Bosco ‘B’ saw both the sides failing to convert most of their chances for the major part of the match.

Kush Sampat, Carlin Pereira and Joel Rodrigues had a number of opportunities to fire Leslie Machado’s side into the lead but they couldn’t manage to convert the half chances.

On the other end, St. Pius X kept on creating chances in the final third and with only ten minutes remaining on the clock, Tanishq Adrian pounced on a defensive error to score the decisive and winning goal to take his side into the final.

A few days ago, Leslie Machado’s Don Bosco ‘A’ side had lifted the Division 1 title at Cooperage, surely a double would have been an icing on the cake for the long serving coach of Don Bosco.

The second semi-final between Bombay Scottish and St. Lawrence turned out to be a one sided affair. Two first-half goals by Pranay and Ayaan turned the course of the tie as Bombay Scottish went into the break with two goals advantage.

Bombay Scottish (Mahim)

St. Lawrence responded strongly after the break by creating numerous openings while attacking from the center. Nihar Modi, Dhruv Chauhan and Pratham Shirodkar had a good second-half, but the defensive backline of Bombay Scottish stood strong to deny them scoring.

Druv Vazirani wrapped up the match in the dying minutes to lead his side into the final. The final which will be played on Saturday will be nothing but an anticipating match. Both the finalists kept a clean sheet in the semis which indicates their strong defence. On Saturday, it will be interesting to see which wall manages to stand still.

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