National Youth Football Academy lift PDFA third division title
March 4, 2020, Pune
Pune on a torrid Monday afternoon at the Dobarwadi Ground last week, National Youth Football Academy (NYFA) nicked a 1-0 victory against Diego Juniors ‘B’ to win the third division super league of the Pune District Football Association’s (PDFA) league 2019-20.
Striker Vaibhav Joshi netted the only goal of the game after 15 minutes to hand NYFA their maiden third division title.
NYFA entered the finals of the tournament after securing a 2-1 win over Bopodi FC in the semifinal while Diego Juniors ‘B’ defeated Sunny Days on penalties on February 23.
A cagey final was settled by just one 15th minute strike from Joshi, who was set up brilliantly by Atharva Nivdekar.
The NYFA defence disallowed any Diego Juniors attacker to creep past them as they held on to clinch their first ever title.
As the tournament entered the knockout stage, NYFA beat Parshuramians ‘B’ 4-1 on penalties after both sides failed to break the deadlock in normal time.
Atharva Nivedkar, Dhananjay Lodkar, Mayur Kudale and Akash Wadkar converted from the spot for NYFA.
In the quarter-finals, NYFA registered yet another victory on penalties against Saswad FC after a goalless finish at full-time.
Costly misses from Mukund Murari, Prajwal Memane and Hrishikesh Khedekar handed NYFA a narrow 3-2 win, propelling them into the semis.
Vaibhav Joshi, who netted the winning goal in the final, also scored the winning goal for NYFA in the semifinal encounter against Bopodi FC.
Bopodi took the lead through Akash Pardeshi in the 15th minute, but NYFA bounced back with a 28th minute equaliser from Akash Wadkar.
Joshi completed the dramatic comeback in the 38th minute of the match.
Result: Third Division Final:
National Youth Football Academy (NYFA) 1 (Vaibhav Joshi 15’) bt Diego Juniors B 0
