MUMBAI: Central Railway trounced Air India u-19 7-1 to reach the quarterfinal of Nadkarni Cup at RCF grounds. They will next play Bank of India on July 25 for a place in the semis.
Air India, in a futuristic move, have blooded in an under-19, team apart from a regular squad. The ploy was seen as an attempt to give the young players an early exposure and a brush with the bigger teams.
The match, in its initial stages, saw an aggressive Railways firing in from all quarters. Though they did find a little resistance from Air India early on, yet Railways were able to breach Air India’s defence.
They scored their first goal in the 13th minute. Soccor Velho comfortably steered a pass from his right flank into the goal of the opposition. After this, there was a flurry of attempts by Railway, most of them threateningly close but more than that giving them a psychological advantage, something that worked in their favour throughout the day.
Railway’s superiority came to the fore as Air India, weak in every aspect — physically, strategically, mentally — failed to put up any notable challenge. With Velhu relishing every scoring opportunity that his teammates arranged for him, Railway ended with 5-1 at half-time, four of them coming from Velhu including a hat-trick.
Air India may have had a strategy in place, but football being so much a physical game, their planning seemed to falter due to sheer lack of strength and stamina, something their coach underlined later.
“There have been quite a few positives but what needs to be worked on is their stamina and mental preparation before playing a physically stronger opposition,” said the coach. He added: “given that we had only 15 days to choose a team of 18 from a bunch of 70 players and that there was no proper field to practice I think we put up a satisfactory performance.”
