Holy Family champs

Though the Bandra Packers’ goalkeeper Sunil Parmar seemed more vulnerable than Augustine D’Silva, the Holy Family custodian, it was the former who brought about a fantastic save to put the players in white ahead. Holy Family’s prolific striker Edgar Pereira’s erred with a lazy shot which was stopped by Parmar, diving to his left.

The scoreline read 2-1 in favour of Packers with Pascal Koli and Altaf Ansari finding the net. The latter in fact, was lucky when his shot deflected inside after hitting the horizontal post. Shivlal Yadav had scored the only goal at that time for Holy Family.

Down by a goal Holy Family replaced their custodian with the experienced HasmukhBaria. This changed the team’s fortunes though Baria was not exactly the cause.

Blaise Vassaokar was the first of the Bandra Packers to miss from the spot. In an attempt to avoid the tall Baria, Vassaokar found himself hitting the ball way to the right of the post.

The lanky Wallis Arana made no mistake on his turn with a blinder to the top left of the post giving Parmar no time even to react. The Vassaokar miss seemed to have punctured the Packers’ custodian’s confidence as he made feeble attempts thereon.

But the blow came when the dependable Girish Desai’s hit curled past the left post on the wrong side to send a wave of cheer in the Holy Family camp.Joaquim D’Silva finished the last rites with a grounder which was completely misjudjed by Parmar.

It was a bit of misfortune for the Packers who were in better form than Holy Family in terms of ball control and attacking. In fact, the Bandra team could have finished the match in regulation time. Fifteen minutes in the first-half, winger ClarenceRemedious came up with a solo down the line. He waded his way through three defenders before firing from just outside the net from the left. But custodian D’Silva came up with a fantastic save, clutching the ball on his chest.

Just before half-time, Holy Family too had a chance when an unmarked Edgar Pereira hit the far post off an aerial pass by Baria.

The game’s only card came in the 23rd minute after Baria ran into right-half Aldrin Bird resulting in an exchange of words between the two. But referee Wilfred Pereira flashed out a yellow card when Bird continued to argue even after the referee and some players intervened.

Scorers (Tie-breaker)

Holy Family 5 (S Yadav, Hasmukh Baria, Wallis Arana, Vasant Karkera, Joaquim D’Silva) bt Bandra Packers 4 (Pascal Koli, Altaf Ansari, Aldrin Bird, Clarie Remedious)

Schools football

The Mumbai Schools Sports Association (MSSA) Inter-School football tournament, sponsored by Colgate Palmolive, will commence from July 16.The matches will beplayed at the MSSA-Castrol Schools Sports Centre, Azad maidan (north end); St Xavier’s ground, Parel; St Dominic Savio ground, Mahakali Andheri (East) and St Francis D’Assisi ground, Borivli.

All first division matches will be of 30 minutes duration. All other under-16 and U-14 games of 25 minutes each half.

During the rainy weather, teams should phone in to ascertain the schedule.