The St. Columbus Collegiate School from Jharkhand lifted the dazzling Subroto Cup trophy after defeating Army Boys Company 2-1 in the Under-17 Junior Boys final at the floodlit Dr Ambedkar Stadium here today.
Paolenmang Tuboi struck the winner in the 50th minute after the teams were locked 1-1 at the interval.
The final had fewer thrills but more gimmicks from the spectators' point of view as they had come to witness hard- core football action from the teams under the lights.
To that extent, the teams did disappoint the fans except for a phase when they played brilliant football before going into shell yet again, particularly in the second session.
Sandeep Kachhap put Jharkhand ahead in the seventh minute of the game. In fact, within the next 11 minutes the Army Boys had levelled when striker M. Haokip scored.
The rest of the first half saw teams indulging in guarding their citadel.
Credit must go to the St Columbus boys who, used both flanks well and kept a tight leash on the Army Boys and arrested the free-flowing rivals from making any deep inroads into their box before the teams went in for the lemon break.
Returning to action in the second session, there was hardly any change in the script from either squad.
To a large extent, both comfortably managed to thwart each other but at the same time missed a few goal-scoring opportunities emanating from reasonably good moves.
Wild hits here and there in a hurry amplified frustration among the teams but in the end it was Jharkhand who had the last laugh.
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