St. Joseph’s defeat Royal in Under-18 football final
View(s):St. Joseph’s College, Colombo proved their dominance in schools soccer yet again by defeating Royal College 2-1 at the Under-18 All Island Soccer finals last Sunday at the Sugathadasa Stadium to walk away with the glittering Renown President’s Trophy, sponsored by Renown Sports Club for the third consecutive year.
St. Joseph's Senal Sandesh won two individual awards
Joes played to their hearts and kept their momentum going from the word go.
Joes captained by Sachinthaka Perera, who represented the under 18 Sri Lanka schools team to India recently, controlled the midfield along with dimunitive Kavinda Rupasinghe.
Royal too played well in patches and were dangerous when their strikers received the ball from the defence.
Shenal Sandesh the striker of St. Joseph’s College was the pick of the players and was too strong to be stopped by the royal defenders. In the 50th minute of the game Shenal Sandesh was brought down by Royal defender inside the penalty box and conceded a penalty which was goaled by Shenal himself.
Soon after the first goal was scored Royal changed their playing tactics and started attacking from all corners and equalised in the 60th minute through a 35 yard volley by Basit Ameen.
Once again Joes dominated the game in the later stages and scored off a beautiful cross by Pathum Gimhan was well headed in by Kavinda Rupasinghe to seal off the match 2 -1 for Joes.
Shenal Sandesh of St. Joseph’s College won the Player of the finals and the tournament’s highest goal Scorer’s award while Masad of Royal College won the best goal keeper’saward.
At the final whistle score read 2 – 1 in favour of the Joes.
Joes are undisputedly the champs of soccer in school arena as they won the Under 20 All Island tournament two weeks back beating Hameediya Al Hussainiya College.
– Lakshman Ranasinghe
Royal's M. Masad won the Best Goalkeeper award
Josephian skipper Sachinthaka Perera receiving the title from Harin Fernando, Minister of Sports
The victorious Josephian Under-18 football team