When it comes to a football team selection, most coaches want to have the best striker in their team. But when Lawrence Baretto, coach of St Francis D'Assisi High School (Borivli) had to choose his team for the U-16 MSSA inter-school tournament, he realised that to advance to the next round, he needed to have a good defence.
"In this tournament, top teams have exceptional strikers. So to survive, you need to have exceptional defenders. You can always score goals, but great teams concede the least," said Baretto.
His decision to concentrate on his defenders has worked as his team has conceded just three goals in five matches so far. On Monday, they beat Campion High School 1-0, courtesy a Pratik Shetty winner, to advance to the semifinal.
Though the school from Borivli needed just a draw to go through, their game plan was to for a victory. "I told the boys to go all out for the win. Campion are a good side with skilful players, but I knew my back line would be up to the task," said Baretto.
Campion have a formidable strike force and one would have expected to get a couple of goals at least, but that was cut by the D'Assisi defence.
D'Assisi's main man in defence is their captain, Brendon D'Souza. Standing at 6ft 2in, D'Souza is predominantly a left back but plays in any position as the situation demands.
On Monday, he was in his elements, rescuing his team from difficult positions and even making three goal-saving tackles. Their previous game against Christ Church School (Byculla) was headed for a stalemate when D'Souza realised that he had to do something for his team. So, he decided to play as a striker for the last five minutes. That move worked perfectly as he managed to provide an assist for his teammate Aditya Shetty's header.
Joining D'Souza in the backline is the central pairing of Manish Soundalkar and Mandar Vasaikar. The pair have been playing together since the time they played in U-10 tournament. "We have a good understanding between the two of us. That's why the coach decided to continue with us rather than playing Brendon (D'Souza) as stopper," said Vasaikar.
D'Assisi play Bombay Scottish in the semifinal on Wednesday at the Cooperage Grounds, Colaba. –anil.dias@dnaindia.net
Stopwatch: St. Francis D'Assisi 'A'(Borivli) 1 (Pratik Shetty) bt Campion School 'A' 0
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