Goalie Deon stands tall despite St Anne’s fall

St Anne’s goalkeeper Deon Shetty during the MSSA U-12 match against Bombay Scottish on Saturday. Pic/Satej Shinde

St Anne's HS (Malad) custodian Deon Shetty, 11, stood tall under the bar, making almost a dozen saves, but his school still suffered a 0-3 defeat at the hands of Bombay Scottish (Mahim) in a boys' U-12 quarter-final of the MSSA inter-school football tournament at Azad Maidan on Saturday.

The gutsy Deon displayed excellent reflexes, fine anticipation and clean collections of the aerial balls as he bravely rushed out and dived at the feet of the rival attackers to deny them from scoring and thereby restricting the margin of defeat. Don Bosco's (Matunga) most successful coach Leslie Machado was among those impressed, watching the young goalkeeper coolly punch a rasping shot over the horizontal.

"I tried my best, but our defenders were not quick to clear the ball and that put me under a lot of pressure. Had we scored at least one goal, the result could have been different," Deon told mid-day.

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Scottish captain, Daksh Garg, who leads his team's goal-scoring chart with nine strikes, did not find it easy to beat Dean. Time and again he was denied by the hardworking goalkeeper, before he somehow managed to score two late goals to take his team into the semi-finals. Idhant Pai had given the Scottish side the lead with a ninth-minute strike.

Earlier, Don Bosco (Matunga), powered by Naveen Ganesan's twin strikes, blanked Dhirubhai Ambani International (BKC) 4-0. Jacob Kshetrimayum and Aryan Parab scored the other two goals for the Bosco boys.

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