By Treiston Joseph
Western Tigers played undefeated to win the second edition of the Limacol Football tournament on Saturday evening at the Georgetown Football Club ground, emerging with a 1-0 win against the Guyana Police Force FC. Western Tigers, as is usually the case, played well using passes to get into their rhythm and was clearly the better creative side on the night.
However, a foul about 23 yards out from goal gave Western the best chance of the game from a free kick set piece and Colin Nelson curled the ball into the top right hand corner of the goal in the 19th minute to score the game’s only goal.
Police would have a few chances to equalise, none more glaring than a ball across the face of goal with the striker all alone. He however, failed to put the ball in the back of the net around the 70th minute mark of the game.
Coach of Western Tigers, Calvin Allen, was pleased with the win and hopes that the form of the team will at some point earn them entrance to the Elite League, expected to start on March 5.
The win for the new champs also means that they pocketed the grand prize of $500,000 along with their group win total of $100,000 for a grand total of $600,000 for the tournament. Meanwhile, in the third place playoff between Santos FC and Winners Connection, the latter took the win in a penalty shootout that ended 5-3 after a 2-2 regulation time draw.
Winners Connection opened the scoring in the 27th minute with a goal from Keon Sears to end the first half with just the one goal. Winners tried shutting down in full defence in the second half, but Orin Yarde equalised in the 77th minute of the match.
Five minutes later, Winners Connection gave away a penalty in the 83rd minute that was converted by Keith Caines only to see Winners Connection equalise two minutes later with a easy tap in goal from Cedric Hunte.
Organiser of the tournament, Troy Mendonca, was pleased with the tournament and thanked the fans for the support throughout the tournament.
