New Delhi: Keeping the rich football tradition of northeastern teams intact, Army Boys Sports Company from Shillong sealed their quarterfinal berth in the Junior Boys (Under-17) section of the 56th Subroto Cup International Football Tournament.
In a pool A match, the Meghayala team humiliated Tamil Nadu’s Rani Seethi Aachi Higher Secondary School, Cuddalore, 11-3 for their fourth successive victory. With Chandigarh’s GM Higher Secondary School (Sector 36) pullout, the Shillong boys have almost completed their pool engagement. They were scheduled to play their fifth match against Chandigarh tomorrow.
As for the other pools—B, C and D—the picture is still hazy with teams having to play a match tomorrow. Pool C is posing an intriguing challenge as a few northeastern teams are intensely mixed up in battle royal.
Coming back to the Army Boys win, it was along the expected lines. With the Tamil Nadu school team not having the necessary acumen against a speedy side like the Shillong squad, only one thought—how to stop their opponents—was occupying the minds of the Cuddalore boys for most part of the league match. Yet, they managed to find gaps in Army Boys defence to reduce the margin.
In fact, the Army Boys scored five goals in the first half and matched up their regular raids with six goals in the second session. For the Tamil Nadu outfit, all their three goals through A. Prabhakaran (2) and V. Ganeshan in the second half. N. Roshan Singh, Saikhang Boro and Renzong Lepcha scored a brace each for the winners with substantial contributions coming from the rest of team members.
In the light of Army Boys booking their quarterfinal slot, the match between Gujarat’s St. Xavier’s Higher Secondary School and Uttarakhand’s Maharana Pratap Sports College was a formality that had to be completed. And the Uttarakhand team beat Gujarat 4-3. Ankul Negi, Subham Rana (2) and Gaurav Rawat scored for the sports college team while S. Joseph, Charles Pias and Chris Dias struck for Gujarat.
Pool C saw four matches happening with three teams heavily exploiting the weaknesses of their rivals as Mizoram’s Government Bazaar High School (Lunglei) beating Maharashtra’s Father Agnel Multipurpose School and Junior College (Vashi) 7-1, Meghalaya’s Mawsura RC Upper Primary School (Nongstoin) thrashing Delhi NCR’s Shri Ram School 7-0 and Betkuchi High School (Guwahati) downing Car Nicobar’s Government Senior Secondary School (Mallaca) 10-0. The only match which produced a balanced result was the one between Sikkim’s Central Pendam Senior Secondary School and Sports Authority of India, Salt Lake, Kolkata. Sikkim outfit won 2-1. Dakamn Rai and Younga Bhutia scored for Sikkim and for SAI Abhishek Das struck.
C. Lal Duhawma and BL Lunage were the goal-getter for Government Bazaar school while Kasib scored the consolation goal for the Vashi team. From Meghalaya’s side Yuanbok scored a brace after Andyson put their squad in lead in the fifth minute with Banshan completing the rout with a goal in the 71st minute. Pranjal scored four times for the Assam squad with Bishnu and Nayan Jyoti scored twice each for the team.
In pool D West Bengal’s Rajganj MN High School beat Odisha’s Town High school (Sundargarh) 5-1 and Mamta Modern School from Delhi beat Daman & Diu’s Government Senior Higher Secondary School 14-1. This was, incidentally, the heaviest defeated inflicted by the Delhi side so far. For West Bengal, Raman Malha and Ajit Majhi scored two goals each and Subhankar Roy scored the lone goal for Odisha.
For Mamta Modern, Avinash struck four times, Mayank three and Abhishek and Ratnish hit the target twice each. The lone goal for the losers came from Raj Patel.
In other Pool B matches, Indian Railways lost to Manipur’s Little Angels 0-4 and BKSP, Bangladesh defeated Air Force Bal Bharti School 8-2 and in pool C, Sainik School from Uttarakhand beat Maharashtra’s NCC 1-0. Shaukat was the star performer for Bangladesh with four goals while Arafatmia scored three. Jaideep scored twice for AFBBS.
