Vyansa embarrasses Victory

Four matches played, Vyansa is still unbeaten

Male', MALDIVES - Vyansa continues their impressive form bagging a draw against mighty Victory today. Victory who took the lead twice couldn’t hold on to it as Vyansa came from behind every time to make things all square. The draw is a big step for Vyansa to find a way through to the second round.

Rafael missed first open chance in the 8th minute of the game. Rafael was unmarked when he reached Luciano’s low cross, but he just fired it over the cross bar.

Victory, who impressed against VB in their last game, kept pressing hard inside Vyansa half and chances were created one by one. Vyansa keeper was in full action at this period, but the result came in the 34th minute.

Rafael controlled the cross from Ahmed Saeed and took a powerful shot which glued on the top net of the goal. This was Rafael’s 10th goal in this season, but his first in Victory’s jersey.

It was Victory who dominated the game even after the goal and before half time Luciano and Shiyam both missed chances to score, but Vyansa’s Kofi Debrah didn’t miss his only chance in this half.

The inform Ghana striker found the equalizer two minutes before the half time embarrassing his marker Faisal, Kofi scored from Sung’s pass.

But once again things turned into Victory side early in the second half, a combination of play from Ahmed Saeed, Rafael and Shiyam lead to their second goal. Rafael slowly passed the cross from Saeed, and then Shiyam beat the defender and shoot into the corner to restore their lead in the 49th minute.

But nine minutes later Ahmed Rilwan surprised the reds with a superb solo performance. From his own half he came on his own into the center of Victory half and beat three opponents on his way an took the shot outside Victory penalty area, which went straight into the goal. Keeper Faisal couldn’t even have a touch on the ball.

It was very even after Vyansa’s equalizer and both the teams created chances to find the winning goal.

Vyansa defenders cleared an effort from Victory in the 65th minute and three minutes later Kofi had a good shot, which missed the target nearly.

Nafiu and Kofi missed good opportunities in the 90th minute to give lead to their respective teams. Nafiu’s powerful shot inside Vyansa penalty area was well saved by keeper and Kofi’s shot, less than a minute later, once again missed the target by inches.

After the match, Vyansa’s delighted coach Nizam said they wanted to finish the league as a surprising team and warned the bigger teams to face minnows like them seriously.

‘I am very happy of this result. We played really well in the first half and in the second half we focused mainly to defend’ he said.

‘We always hear top four and three minnows before we face tournaments like this. So they (bigger teams) always take matches likes this lightly’

‘But I think their mentality will be changed when they used to see results like these’

‘We always want a win and results like this in the league will boost players' confidence ahead of other games’ He continued.

‘We want to finish the league as a surprising team’ He concluded.

Meanwhile Nizam’s opponent number, Mauroof praised the performance shown by Vyansa and believed the result was a defeat for Victory since they lost their lead twice.

‘We took the lead twice but Vyansa came from behind every time with a very organized and good play’ He started.

‘I believe we lost today’s game, because we took the lead twice but couldn’t hold on to it’

‘We missed the absence of Anil and Rodriguez today’ He added.

‘Our target right now is to have at least three points gap between the first team at the end of this stage; else it would be very hard to win the league’

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