Cathedral champs

The Cathedral & John Connon U-14 team with the MSSA trophy at Bombay Gymkhana. Pic/Gordon D’Costa

Cathedral & John Connon (Fort) functioned as a well-organised unit and outplayed St Stanislaus (Bandra), charging to a convincing 3-1 victory in the boys U-14 Division-I final of the MSSA inter-school football tournament at the Bombay Gymkhana ground on Tuesday.

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The Cathedral lads were a disciplined lot and perfectly executed the strategies of their coach Jayesh Solanki, who egged his players on, shouting instructions throughout the match. The Cathedral lads showed good understanding and with neat passing bouts launched a series of raids towards the Stanislaus goal. Having asserted their dominance over the Bandra boys, the Cathedral side scored three goals to go into the breather with a commanding 3-0 advantage.

Early opener
In the eighth minute, Cathedral's dashing striker Anaai D'Souza cut in from the left to latch onto a forward pass, showed good control as he beat the onrushing Stanislaus goalkeeper Tanzeem Qureshi with a neat flick and then made a long run before joining his teammates in celebration.

Six minutes later, Zahan Mistry's long throw-in from the right saw the Stanislaus goalkeeper let the ball slip out of his hands and roll into the goal which gave Cathedral a 2-0 lead.

Classy free-kick
Cathedral's third goal had a stamp of class all over it. Rian Uniyal showed exemplary dead-ball skills as he scored with a swerving shot off a direct 20-yard free-kick giving goalkeeper Tanzeem no chance whatsoever. Stanislaus got a consolation goal through their captain Zidane Fernandes.