Joga Bonito win women’s beach football title

The victorious Joga Bonito team with their trophies at Juhu beach recently

Joga Bonito emerged champions of Mumbai's first ever Beach Soccer tournament for women organised by PCPL-UK United in association with GoEqual Premier League, at Juhu beach recently.

The tournament that was held under the guidance of Mumbai Football Association secretary Sudhakar Rane and organised by Maharashtra's beach football team manager Ronald D'Souza and coach Preetam Mahadik, saw 10 teams battle it out for the top prize.

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In the keenly contented summit clash, Joga Bonito got the better of Uncle's Kitchen United 3-2 via tie-breaker after the scores read 0-0 at the end of regulation time.

In the subsequent shootout, Joga Bonito's Namrata Thakur, Rakhee Sawant and VK Shrutilakshmi made no mistake from the spot while UK United could only manage to score through Delfiya Pereira and Krishita Iyer. Joga Bonito's Sapna Jaiswar was adjudged best player of the tournament while UK United's Meenakshi Bhagat was named best goalkeeper. The Joga Bonito girls were awarded a cash prize of Rs 25000 while UK United were richer by Rs 15000.

"Maharashtra is proud to lead in women's players registrations across India under AIFF [All India Football Federation]. Also, our boys recently became runners-up at the Beach Festival organised by Daman and Diu and AIFF. Now, our focus shifts to empowering our girls to achieve similar heights. We want to promote beach soccer tournaments for girls, aiming to elevate their performance and inspire greater participation in this exciting sport," MFA secretary Rane told mid-day.com.

State team manager D'Souza assured more tournaments like this in the future. "The MFA have communicated to us that they are very keen to spread beach football across the state and this tournament is a step in that direction. To promote beach football and futsal, we plan to organise more such events across Mumbai's beaches and even across Maharashtra coastline to unearth new talent," said manager D'Souza.