Peshawar
Islamabad Futsal team won the National Women’s Futsal Championship by defeating favourite Gilgit-Baltistan team after a strong and nerve-wracking final match played here at indoor hall of the Pakistan Sports Board Coaching Centre on Thursday.
Chief Secretary Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Dr. Kazim Niaz was the chief guest who witnessed the thrilling final.
Secretary Sports Abid Majeed, DG Sports Asfandyar Khan Khattak, Project Director Murad Ali Mohmand, Director Female Games Rashida Ghaznavi, Director Operations Syed Saqlain Shah, Pakistan Futsal Federation Chairman Malik Mehraban, Senior Vice President Malik Adnan, KP Futsal Association Chairman Wajih Al Hassan, Senior Vice President Ijaz Ahmad, Secretary Moeen Uddin, officials and players were also present.
In the final, both the teams played a brilliant and exhibited standard game. At the appointed time, the match between the two teams fought at a rattling pace.
It was the first session in which both Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad exhibited classic displays of attacking play and dribbling with some flair distribution of passes were also witnessed.
The coordination of the Islamabad team players were par excellent and their short-passes were so vital in defeating the rival defenders.
Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan got many easy goal chances but they were missing the target.
Their attempts were either missed or the goal-keeper of each team came to rescue their respective team.
Despite many goal-fetching chances none of the team could be able to score and thus the first-half was decided a goal-less draw.
Similarly, the same was the fate of the second session of 20 minutes in which both Islamabad and Gilgit-Baltistan and Islamabad team comprising Imniaya, Mahnoor, Minahil, Maham, Laiba, Malaika, Aqsay Afzal, Chaman, Isra, Madiaha, Ishaq Malik, Palwasha played like a wall and did not allow the front line of Gilgit-Baltistan to get any lead. Thus the second-half also remained goal-less.
After that, both the teams were awarded three penalty kicks. It should be noted that in the first semi-final, Gilgit-Baltistan defeated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Green by 5-1, while Islamabad defeated Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pink 2-1 to reach the final.
In the match for the third position, KP Pink defeated KP Red’s team by 3-1 in the third positional match.
Teams from Gilgit-Baltistan, Islamabad, Balochistan, Punjab, Pakistan Railways, Pakistan Police and Sindh, The Success, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Green and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pink participated in the National Women Futsal Championship played league basis with all the teams have been divided in two groups.—APP
