Titanium defeats resiliant Vyasa
In one of the most entertaining matches seen so far in the tournament Titanium emerged winners after they defeated a spirited Vyasa College Thrissur 2-1 to reach the Quarter finals of the 34th Kerala State Club Football Championships at Thrissur Corporation Stadium
Titanium squad played with their traditional 4-4-2 formation with Prasanth Simon pairing up along former State player Usman upfront. With the likes of Ebin Rose, Cleetus, Satheesh and Tinson in their line-up, Titanium was the favourite to go through.
Vyasa playing in yellow jersey surprised everyone when they put their first chance into the net with just 3 minutes gone. Sumesh KP with a wonderful run cut in the ball from left side to the center of the box where Prasad from midfield had made a good run in to finish. Titanium Goalkeeper Joby Joseph who got a chance ahead of Kerala keeper Navas was left helpless.
The boys gave a real test for the Trivandrum champions cancelling out their moves by some good team work. But they were hard to be tied down. Titanium came up with an equaliser in the 11th minute when experienced Ebin Rose took on two defenders and unleased a powerful shot past the Vyasa Keeper.
The match thereafter was highly entertaining as both the teams resorted to an attacking game. Cleetus had few chances but his shots were off target.
The score remained 1-1 till half time.
Titanium brought in Diljith in the second half replacing Byju. This move proved to be very effective as he made some excellent runs in the flank and caused a lot of trouble for the Vyasa defence.
The problems worsened for Vyasa when Firoz As was shown the second yellow of the game. Vyasa reducing to 10 men gave extra work to each of them and were finding it hard to keep Titanium away.
In the 75th minute, Diljith produced a good header off a free kick but it went just over the post.
Vyasa tried to break free when they got chances creating some concern in the Titanium defence, but the chances were not converted.
Titanium got the winning goal in the 88th minute of the game through a counter attack. Cleetus finished it after a good run.
The win takes Titanium to the quarter finals where they would meet the winners of Central Excise v/s Kottayam Cosmos which will be played today.
Full Time: Travancore Titanium 2-1 Vyasa College
Goals
Travancore Titanium
Ebin Rose 11′
Cleetus 88′
Vyasa College
Prasad KM 3′
Cards
34′ Midhun (Vyasa)
40′,69′ Firoz AS (Vyasa-Sent Off)
60′ Pinto (Vyasa)
80′ Shabeer(Titanium)
85′ Arun(Vyasa)
Man of the Match: Sumesh(Vyasa)
Squad
Vyasa College Thrissur
Sreekumar PS (GK), Firos AS, Nawas K, Midhun Mohan, Kunju Moideen, Prasad KM, Satheesh KK, Arun Aravinth, Ritesh R, Sumesh KP, Pinto Franco.
Titanium
Joby Joseph(GK), Sabir, Satheesh, Shabeer, Tinson Justine, Cleetus, Byju, Ebin Rose, Tom Antony, Usman, Prasanth Simon.
