Tharusha missed a chance of being a savior for Negombo youth as he missed a crucial penalty in the last minutes of the game after both teams had equalized.
The Crystal Palace goalkeeper Mubeen Abbas becomes the star for the game played against Negombo youth as players from both the sides put up their best show at the Sugathadasa Stadium. But all they could achieve was two goals each and the result of the game was a draw. Off the two teams Negombo Youth had more opportunities of winning the game than Crystal Palace, yet they failed to keep up their winning streak. Crystal Palace had an excellent attacking line with speedy wingers. The lob passes and crosses given by the wingers were perfect, but the strikers did not meet the ball at the appropriate time to score goals.
Negombo Youth had more ball possession than the opponents. Crystal palace played a relaxing game which was an advantage to the boys from Negombo. Once the goal was scored Crystal palace increased the pace and style of their playing. They took the maximum usage of their strikers to score, none of them were successful. Strikers Isaac Aba and Mohamed Shifan tried their level best to equalize the game before the short whistle. Isaac‘s shots towards the nets were tapped out by the opponent goalkeeper Roomal Vass. Tharusha and Kasun had a better understanding as they have played together in the national squad. Tharusha was the key player for Negombo Youth supplying the ball to the wingers was his main duty. While Kasun ran into the defenders to break the line so that it would be easy to score goals for them.
Negombo Youth Led the game till the breather.
Center Back Kumara headed the ball towards the nets to score the first goal of the game. His height and jump matched the cross ball given by right winger Harindra Peiris from the center of the field. Afterwards Negombo Youth had few chances of conceding more goals. Too many missed passes were seen within attackers and looked as if it was due to lack of communication.
An overlap pass given by Harindra to Manjula was directly crossed to the penalty box. Striker Pradeep Fernando headed the ball to the post. Crystal Palace goalkeeper Mubeen’s dive to save the ball was successful and no one expected that ball to be saved. Yet again Negombo Youth missed another chance when No.08 Tharusha gave a rolling ball to Kasun Jayasooriya who took a powerful shot towards the post. Just like the previous save Mubeen tapped the ball to the outline.
Comeback by Crystal palace was not successful.
In the second half Negombo Youth were playing a relaxed game and Crystal Palace were under pressure. Isaac waited till he received the ball to his feet and made a movement which was a tensed situation to the opponent defenders. A sliding tackle to Isaac was made by Kumara inside the penalty box. Referee A.Tharanga was compelled to give away a penalty to the boys in yellow jersey. No.07 Isaac made his way to score the penalty in the 60th minute. Both sides had one goal each.
Four minutes later Isaac booted another goal when his skipper Bernard gave him a through pass. Isaac made sure he was not offside and then ran to collect the ball while the defenders expected the referee to call it offside. Standing one on one against the goalkeeper, Isaac took his own time to place the ball and was successful with the goal. Crystal palace took the lead for the first time in the game.
Negombo Youth fought back to gain another goal as they were the dominant of the game. Few shots taken by experienced striker Kasun were off target. Some of them were collected by the goalkeeper. Tharusha took a shot towards the nets, opponent striker managed to punch the ball. The punched ball was received by Tharusha again and this time he decided to pass the ball to his striker No.10 Pradeep Fernando instead of taking another shot. Crystal Palace defenders thinking Tharusha would take a shot focused on him and ran towards him. Tharusha master-minded a brilliant move and instead passed the ball to Pradeep and by the time goalkeeper turned his attention to Pradeep, he had made his shot to the nets. Negombo Youth equalizes the game 2-2.
Both teams kept on fighting till the last minute. However, just before the final whistle Tharusha disappointed Negombo Youth by missing the penalty shot. Crystal Palace goalkeeper Mubeen Abbas became the star of the match as his save drew the match.
