Inter-school football: Campion, Bosco to battle for title

Campion players celebrate their win yesterday. Pic/Atul Kamble

Campion School (Colaba) goalkeeper Kabir Bhatia, 15, played a significant role, making some excellent timely saves in regulation time and then made two crucial saves in the tie-breaker to help his school overcome a fancied St Mary's ICSE (Mazgaon) 3-0 via tie-breaker in a keenly fought boys' U-17 semi-final of the District Sports Office (DSO) Mumbai City inter-school football tournament at the Mumbai Police ground, Naigaon on Thursday.

In the shootout, Campion skipper Iryaveer Chawla, Rivaan Karachiwala and Ayan Mehta successfully converted, while St Mary's failed to score a single penalty. Showing good anticipation Kabir dived to his left to save the first attempt from Nathan Nessiah and then blocked Rajveer Chauhan's shot before Kahaan Goregaonkar hit wide.

In the second semi-final, defending champs Don Bosco (Matunga) beat Cathedral & John Connon (Fort) 4-3 also via tie-breaker after the match ended goalless.

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Referee Anas Ansari red carded Bosco coach Leslie Machado in the first half and booked seven players (four from Cathedral and three from Don Bosco) as tempers flared in the keen contest. In the 17th minute, Don Bosco's Ethan Fernandes after being dispossessed, rushed back and retackled Cathedral's Agastya Kilachand to regain possession. Referee Ansari however, felt it was a foul and showed Ethan the yellow card. This prompted Machado to shout and hurl expletives at the referee, who without hesitation gave him marching orders.

In the tie-breaker, Bosco scored through Om Kidrat, Christiano Fernandes, Angelo Fernandes and Atharva Gaonkar, while Cathedral's Ziev Chheda, Jahaan Sheth, and Parsh Bafna converted from the spot. Yash Bhatia and Arjun Khanna missed their spot kicks for Cathedral.