The Royal College Colombo football team beat Mahinda College Galle to win the Albert Edirisinghe memorial trophy in the second leg of this year’s encounter played today at the Royal College sports Complex.
The memorial trophy was played for the 20th occasion this year after a lapse of 20 years, being initiated jointly by the two institutions in 1984. Royal College has had a respectable reputation over the years producing promising footballers however it is very rare to see them go the distance in perusing their journeys in the sport.
Mahinda College however cannot be referred to as the under dogs of the encounter either. They too have produced very talented footballers and in the recent context they have produced two outstanding athletes who were selected for the Manchester United football development training sessions too making the two teams evenly poised to be an exciting encounter even before kickoff.
With a 2 point lead over team from Galle, Royal College seemed more settled from the start apart from a few passing mishaps which should have been better directed and controlled. The first opportunity however came through an eye-pleasing display of dribbling by Naveen Nikeleselas who likes to be referred to as ‘Neymar JN’ taking up after his idol who worked his way past the defenders and took a shot at the goal just missing the far right corner.
Mahinda College Galle was caught behind many a time by the Royal forwards who played a very attacking game from the start probably owing to the 2 point lead from the first leg in Galle. The Royal Goal keeper too had a very good game intercepting at most times cutting down the options for the boys from Galle.
It was another beautiful passage of play by the Royalists where center striker Haritha Gajanayake delivered a powerful kick which struck the top post to be rebound by Insaaf Iyoob which the goal keeper had some trouble handling and fumbled the ball slightly over the line to the eye of a spectator contrary to what the on field referee saw much to the displeasure of the Royal support who turned up in their numbers. The Mahinda College goal saver didn’t seem to be in the game at most times, fumbling many times during the game and slacking short of a misjudged angles.
Dulip Madushanka of Mahinda College easily out shone the forwards of the Mahinda team as well as the Royal team but he couldn’t capitalize as he couldn’t find the spaces to get ball through and majority of his kicks were very powerful but disappointingly misdirected. If he had found those gaps and his kicks were better directed the game would have turned on its head at the end of the day.
‘Little Neymar’ Naveen Nikalese of Royal took a free kick awarded to Royal just a few meters out of the penalty box which struck the top upright and rebound but couldn’t score off it and a penalty was awarded to Royal amidst all this due to some rough play by the Mahinda defenders. It was a text book take by Chathura Avishka who masterfully mislead the goal keeper to put the ball to the back net to score the only goal of the match in the latter period of the second half.
One would have definitely expected the Mahinda boys to put up a better show but the Boys is blue and Gold out played them ‘as a unit’.
Half time score – RC 01 – MC 00 (Chathura Avishka)
Full time score – RC 01 – MC 00
Aggregate of both legs – RC 03 – MC 00
