St Stanislaus (Bandra) were fortunate to come out trumps, snatching a 1-0 win over St Paul’s (Dadar) in a boys U-16 Group-C match of the MSSA inter-school football tournament at St Francis D’Assisi ground (Borivli) on Saturday. Last year’s runners-up, St Stanislaus, starting without two of their reliable players—captain Zidane Fernandes (midfielder) and Ethan D’Souza (stopper) both undertaking a pilgrimage abroad—looked a disjointed lot.

On the other hand, the Dadar boys combined well as a unit. They also enjoyed the lion’s share of the attacks and created better scoring opportunities, but somehow failed to beat St Stanislaus captain and goalkeeper Jordan Kamble. St Stanislaus were lucky to get on to the scoresheet with dead-ball specialist Jonathan Pires scoring the lone goal in the 21st minute of the first half. Following an indirect free-kick Jonathan’s swerving shot saw St Paul’s goalkeeper Pranav Joshi unnecessarily trying to get his hands on the ball only to deflect it into his own net.