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After a long wait of 26 years, it is a proud moment for the Maharashtra Women’s football team to have qualified for the knockout stage of the Women’s National Football Championship.
Starting the campaign firmly, Maharashtra defeated Arunanchal Pradesh in their first group stage game with a margin of 6 goals and managed a clean-sheet. Both the teams looked inseparable in the first half and then Valencia D’mello bagged the opportunity to break the deadlock through a penalty in 49th minute. Valencia scored another goal later in the match. Karen Pais scored a hat-trick of goals within 16 minutes and took the game completely out of the grip of Arunachal Pardesh.
In their second match against Jammu and Kashmir on 1st December, once again both the teams held each other from scoring goals in first half and then Aishwarya Bhonde scored one goal in the initial minutes of 2nd half (47th minute). Sapna Jaiswar fired one more in the 88th minute for Maharashtra.
Maharashtra’s defense was impregnable once again and their goalkeeper Priyanka Sutaria had one more clean-sheet to her name.
In the final game of the group stage, Maharashtra once again were able to hold Sikkim. Trupti Deep opened the scoring for Maharashtra in the 62nd minute, but it was equalized by Sikkim’s Siju Hangma. What followed after was a high intensity battle between the two teams but it remained 1-1 at the end of the day.
With seven points, Maharashtra paved their way into the quarter-finals of the Senior Women’s Football Championship in Kerala.
