Air Force enter final by edging out Don Bosco SC

Bernard Perera

Sri Lanka Air Force with a good second half rally made their way to the final of the Dialog Champions League Soccer Championship beating Don Bosco Sports Club from Negombo two goals to one yesterday at the City Football League ground in the second semi final.

It was Don Bosco lads who were in control of the game from the kick off and played good soccer to take the lead just at the edge of the half way mark.

It was national poolist Chathura Guneratne who struck a fine goal when the custodian of Air Force made a big blunder by forcing himself forward. Chathura using his intelligence to the best, lobbed it accurately to the net to put him side in front and the teams left for lemons with the Negombo team leading one-nil.

Airmen played hard but in the first session referee had to show the warning card to three Airmen for rough play, while the Negombo team received only a single warning.

Bosco’s skipper Manju Kumara manned the defence line well to protect the lead while their custodian S. Lakshan played a vital role between the posts saving as many as five goals.

This was the barrier the Airmen faced during the first session.

For Air Force Gafoor Raheem was the play maker moving up and down to help the team control the opponents from scoring. Janaka Chaminda, S. Sanjeeva and Pradeep Kumar were at their best during this session.

After the turn around Airmen combined well and were seen going on the attack.

At this stage Bosco players had to come down to safe guard the lead they held onto.

This tactic made things easy for Airmen to push forward to put more pressure on the Negombo team. At times the defenders sent the ball towards Airmen’s territory but the front runners from the Negombo team was not present to collect those and to go on the attack. This was the biggest mistake they made during this period.

Though Air Force pressurised the opponent with many good moves it took as much as 33 minutes to find the equaliser (78th minute), Negombo lads held stout-heartedly but the Air Force managed to find the winning goal through the boot of Eroshan Tharanga Hapuarachchi with few seconds from the final whistle.

This was the injury time that saw them through to the final 2-1.

As predicted earlier the Airmen made good use of their height advantage to the maximum as the ground conditions too were soggy due to last night’s rain.

Though conditions underfoot were bad both teams dished out the best soccer during the whole game which was witnessed by a record crowd.

Air Force fan dies

An Air Force fan who was present to witness this semi final could not bear the happiness for long after Airmen’s victory and their entry into the final when this fan passed away due to a heart attack in the pavilion among the cheering supporters.