Goalie Mazin saves three as Christ Church enter U-10 final

Christ Church goalkeeper Mazin Shaikh at Azad Maidan. Pic/Gordon D’Costa

Goalkeeper Mazin Shaikh, nine, once again came to the rescue of Christ Church ICSE School (Byculla). Mazin made three crucial saves in the penalty shootout to help Christ Church get the better of Dr Antonio da Silva (Dadar) 3-1 in the MSSA Cup boys under-10 inter-school knockout football tournament at Azad Maidan on Monday.

Mazin had earlier played an important role, making a similar number of saves in their quarter-final win over Bombay Scottish (Mahim). The Christ Church boys, coached by Ranzie Kalicharan, held the upper hand, but were unable to score against Antonio da Silva. The Dadar lads also failed to convert their chances.

Shooting stars

In the shootout, Christ Church successfully scored through Zidaan Amrelia, Azaam Merchant and Ilhan Kardame. Antonio, however, only managed to score through Aarush Shinde, while Harsh Rampelli, Devyank Jadhav and Devansh Gade failed to beat goalkeeper Mazin, who was outstanding under the bar, diving all over the place. The second semi-final was also decided via the tie-breaker. Cathedral & John Connon (Fort) dominated play from the start against arch-rivals Don Bosco (Matunga). However, they could not translate their dominance into goals and had to go through the tense penalty shootout before pulling through 4-3.

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Cathedral to the four

Cathedral scored through Viaan Shah, Arjun Sodha, Aryan Doshi and Arhaan Doshi. For Don Bosco, only Daksh Dandhingh, Zidane Sequeira and Anish Kalyadappu were on target.