Waves Football Club played with plenty of grit and determination as they fought back to defeat South Mumbai United 5-4 via the tie-breaker in a thrilling and well-contested Second Division final of the Mumbai Football Association (MFA) League 2022-2023 and played at the Neville D’Souza ground, Bandra on Tuesday. The match finished in a 3-3 draw.
South Mumbai United gained the upper hand and enjoyed a commanding 3-1 lead at the break. Rajveer Kesri opened the scoring in the 27th minute before Jonathan Poojari doubled the lead with the second goal in the 33rd minute. Tushar Nagi cut the deficit when he scored Waves FC’s first goal in the 30th minute. South Mumbai once again hit the target with Kailash Choudary scoring the third goal in the 34th minute.
In the second period, Waves FC fought hard and Sunny Koli scored two goals, his second in the seventh minute of additional period which leveled the scores and forced the penalty shootout.
In the nerve-wracking tie-breaker, Waves managed to convert two through Nishant Parab and Bhuvan Koli, while Manish Koli and James Sangati failed to score. South Mumbai managed to score only one through Omkar Shinde, while the remaining four players Jaykant Sagar, Hitharth Mandekar, Shubham Kadam and Kazim Rizvi proved poor shooters as they failed to convert from the penalty spot.
Results –
Finals: Waves FC 5 (Sunny Koli 2, Tushar Nagi, Nishant Parab, Manish Koli) beat South Mumbai United 4 (Rajveer Kesri, Jonathan Poojari, Kailash Choudary, Omkar Shinde).
Third place: Rudra Soccer Star Youth 2 (Rohit Kanojia 2) beat Youth Soccer Academy 0.