MARGAO: Saligao Sporting shunted out host Vagator Parish Youth Sports Club 7-6 via sudden death in the final to annex the North Goa Mc Dowell’s No. 1 Yaari Premier Cup inter-village football tournament organized by Vagator Parish Youth Sports Club, at Ozran ground, Vagator, on Sunday.
The teams were locked in a goalless draw at the end of regulation time with both having almost equal number of scoring opportunities.
Saligao dominated in the first quarter of the match, where a combined move from Ajay Diwadkar and Allan Gonsalves failed to materialise into a goal.
However, a couple of minutes later, Uday Naik sent an intelligent through ball to Ajay, who scored but was booked for an off side by Referee Ashok Shirodkar.
In the later part of the first session, Vagator had two scoring chances, but Lester Albuquerque failed to direct his header off Akshay Dabolkar’s floater into the goal, while Sameer’s header was brilliantly saved by Saligao keeper. Over all, Saligao Sporting were a superior side in the first session.
On crossing over, both the teams had an opportunity to take the lead, but Saligao’s Matheus Dias and Vagator’s Aniket Dabolkar failed to find the nets.
Tie-breaker also failed to resolve the issue and sudden death were applied to break the impasse.
In the penalty shootout, Bibiano, Nazir, Viziano, Creig Menezes, Ajay Diwadkar Matheus Dias found the mark for Saligao Sporting while Nitesh, Akshay Dabolkar, Sujeet Korgaonkar Aniket Dabolkar, Tukaram and Sameer were on target for Vagator.
In the sudden death Andrew Gracias was successful for Saligao while Mohan Tuemkar failed to net for host Vagator.
Saligao Sporting team returned home richer collecting the winners cash prize of Rs 50,000 plus trophy while Vagator Parish Youth Sports Club had to be content with the runners-up cash prize of Rs 30,000 plus trophy.
Individual prizes were awarded to: Best goalkeeper Mohan (Vagator), Best defender Akshay (Vagator), Best forward Ajay Diwadkar (Saligao) and First goal scorer of the final Bibiano (Saligao).
Chief guest Water Resources Minister Dayanand Mandrekar gave away the prizes in the presence of guests of honour Deputy General Manager of United Spirits Limited K. Gopinath, Goa Football Association Vice-President North Goa Lavino Rebello, who presided; Marketing Manager, United Spirits K. Satish; Parish Priest of Vagator Church Fr Herculano Correia and Event Manager of VJT Arts, Chinchinim Joe Dias. In all, 16 teams participated.
Earlier, water resources minister was introduced to the teams by Chairman of Vagator Parish Youth Sports Club Fr Correia.
