India wins U-17 South Asian Football Championship

The champion Indian team Skipper Vanlalpekha Guite receiving the SAFF Under-17 Champions Cup from Football Sri Lanka (FSL) President Jaswar Umar. FSL Secretary Upali Hewage and SAFF General Secretary Anwerulhaq look on

A superb team effort by India enabled them to defeat Nepal by 4 goals to nil to annex the South Asian Football Federation (SAFF) Under-17 Soccer Championship at the Race Course Stadium in Colombo yesterday. 

Maintaining an undefeated streak so far in the tournament, tipped to be one of the favourites to clinch this tourney, team Nepal was throttled by India to take a sweet revenge after losing a game earlier to the same opponent, bounced back gallantly to win this prestigious tournament to be staged first time in Sri Lanka.

It was a total dominance by India from the start where they had done their homework well to rectify their own lapses so far in the tournament. They broke the deadlock in the 18th minute of the game when Boby Singh booted a brilliant goal with solo effort. 

11 minutes later, they further increased the lead through another spectacular goal through Korou Singh to make it 2-0 at lemons. During this passage of play, Nepal skipper Prashant Laksam was given the marching rites with a red flag by on-field referee Alomgir for dangerous play. 

After the turn around, both teams fought hard with Nepal sans a player on field trying for the maiden scoring opportunity while curtailing their rivals scoring spree while the winners hunting to increase their goal tally further. 

But with the progress of the game, it was a one-way traffic situation as Indians went on a rampage with some scintillating performance scoring two more goals depriving the rivals a scoring opportunity Indian Skipper Vanlalpekha Guite scored in the 63rd minute while Aman sealed the game for them by scoring in the extra time. 

This tournament was granted by Asian Football Confederation (AFC) due to the efforts of Football Sri Lanka incumbent President Jaswar Umar, who played a pivotal role in making this event a real successful one under difficult circumstances prevailing in the country.