-NA United earns right to join competition
RIDING on the back of double strikes from Gerald Whittington and Aubrey Gibson, both Santos and Victoria Kings Football Clubs gave their opponents Pele and Monedderlust Football Clubs marching orders when the fourth Fruta Conquerors Football Club organised NAMILCO Festival kicked off at the Tucville ground last Saturday night.
New Amsterdam United also earned the right to compete in the tournament which has a first prize of $500,000, when they defeated Grove Hi-Tech 3-0 in the first match of the evening.
Monedderlust’s Alvin Mc Donald instilled confidence in his team when he found the back of Victoria Kings’ goal in the second minute of play, the first of his double.
The goal opened a hunger attitude within the East Coast based Victoria Kings team, as they launched several attacks on the team from the Ancient County, hence it was no surprise when Gibson scored his first goal in the 28th minute, after being booked for unsportsmanlike conduct one minute earlier.
It was a level playing field at lemon time, before Robert De Souza sent Kings into the lead five minutes into the second half, following which a battle for supremacy ensued between the two sides which saw Mc Donald scoring his second goal to level the scores 10 minutes after De Souza’s strike.
Extra time was the order of the night, as both teams squandered goal scoring opportunities that would have placed their team in the lead during regulation time, a scenario that continued during the first and second half of extra time until Gibson found the back of the net to record his double in the final minute of extra time that handed his team a hard fought 3-2 win.
In the feature matchup of the evening, Whittington who scored the lone goal that handed Pele the 2008 Kashif and Shangai title, found the back of the net in the 8th minute of play to send Santos into the lead this time around.
It was a short lived one, as Marvin Joseph snatched the equalizer two minutes later for Pele on  a day when the greatest football player Edison Arantes do Nascimento aka King Pele celebrated his 70th birth anniversary.
However, Whittington ensured Santos advanced to the next round when he scored his second goal in the 35th minute which ensured they walked away with a 2-1 victory.
Adrian Adams (20th and 75th) and Kelvin Joseph (54th) were instrumental in ensuring NA United qualified for the tournament, with a 3-0 victory over Grove Hi-Tech who had earlier suffered a hard fought 2-1 defeat at the hands of Bakewell Buxton Stars in the Mackeson Stout/Digicel Sweet 16 tournament last Wednesday.
Action in this tournament which is solely sponsored by NAMILCO, with Global Technology, Junior’s Jewellery and Bayridge Taxi Service offering attractive individual prizes, will continue on Wednesday with another double-header.
Buxton United and Sunburst Camptown will collide in the first match which kicks off at 18:00h while the Guyana Defence Force and Bakewell Buxton Stars will do battle in the feature match which gets underway at 20:00h.