Former champions Air India faced quite a strong challenge from a 10-man Century Rayon and managed to play out a 3-3 draw in an Elite (Corporate) Division match of the Mumbai Football Association (MFA) League 2022-2023 and played at the Neville D’Souza ground, Bandra on Thursday.
Century Rayon defender Akaba Wayenbam was shown a direct red card by Alok Yadav in the 39th minute.
Air India scored through striker Harsh Utekar who netted a brace of goals and Rakshit Pillai adding one to force the draw. Century Rayon scored their goals through Bhuvanesh K., Shubham P. and Naresh Maibham.
Earlier, PIFA Colaba Under-17 put up a spirited performance but were a bit unfortunate as they went down fighting 2-3 to Sterling Das FA in an interesting First Division encounter. Sterling Das managed to score through a goal each from Mohammed Ummer Ansari, Mohammed Kaid Ansari and Bhavik Waghela to snatch victory. For PIFA Colaba Under-17 both the goals were scored by Arnav Ojha.
In other matches of the same division, Omkar Shirke’s lone strike enabled Boxers FA get the better of a young Don Bosco Academy by a narrow 1-0 margin. Sunday Boys FC also managed to record a hard-fought 2-1 win against Madanpura SC in another evenly contested match. Jagan Jain and Aakash Saxena were on target for Sunday Boys while Madanpura SC scored through Taha Shaikh.
Results – First Div: Sunday Boys FC 2 (Jagan Jain, Aakash Saxena) beat Madanpura SC 1 (Taha Shaikh).
Boxers FA 1 (Omkar Shirke) beat Don Bosco Academy 0.
Sterling Das FA 3 (Mohammed Ummer Ansari, Mohammed Kaid Ansari, Bhavik Waghela) beat PIFA Colaba Under-17 2 (Arnav Ojha 2)
Elite Div: Air India 3 (Harsh Utekar 2, Rakshit Pillai) drew with Century Rayon 3 (Bhuvanesh K., Shubham P., Naresh Maibham).