NOBEL Sports Association’s Football Academy and Porwal Football Academy stormed into the semi-finals with contrasting victories over their respective rivals in the ongoing NDFA Inter-Academy Under-13 Boys Football Tournament being played at Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Football Stadium in Suyog Nagar. On a cloudy Monday morning, NSA edged past Sankalp 4-3 via tie-breaker while high-flying Porwal youngsters continued their dominant run as they crushed Shree Football Academy 11-0 in another one-sided battle. Both the teams will now lock horns in semis which will be played on May 14. In the first match of the morning, NSA Academy rallied to beat a fighting Sankalp FA in shoot-out after they pulled one back to draw the game 1-1 at the end of regulation time. Sankalp took a stunning lead in the 24th minute when they earned a penalty.

 

Manas Rathode made no mistake in sending the ball in the net from the spot. However, NSA rallied beautifully as they drew parity in the 52nd minute when Raghav Nege tapped the ball home to take the game into shoot-out. In the ensuing spot kicks, NSA managed to score through, Raghav Nege, Daksh Buche, Soham Yadav and Likhit Sontakke while for Sankalp Sthita Das, Manas Rathode and Reyansh Gandhi found the back of the net. In the last quarter-final, Porwal boys toyed with Shree Football Academy thrashing them by 11 goals to nil with Mohammad Riyaz scoring seven goals including a double hat-trick. Riyaz’s goals came in 1st, 11th, 13th, 15th, 26th, 31st and 35th minutes. The other goal scorers were Affan Quraishi (2nd, 5th), Mohammad Umar (19th) and Arav Kadbe (40th). Dilip Singh, SR DCM, Senior Sports Officer, SECR was the chief guest of the quarter-final matches.