Victory 2 – 1 Maziya: Full points for Reds

Victory beat Maziya 2-1 to give themselves a good start to Dhiraagu Dhivehi League. Victory took a two goal lead with a cool finish from Patrick and spot kick from Ibrahim Fazeel. Maziya’s new signing Umair cut the deficit at the stroke of first half with a nice free kick.

Ibrahim Fazeel found the loose ball after a mistake from Thasneem in the 16th minute but his thunderous effort hit the side net.

Two minutes later another defensive mistake allowed Patrick to enter unmarked and shot the far corner to break the dead lock.

Patrick had another goal scoring chance in the 25th minute but his header missed the target.

Umair executed a dangerous free kick in the 31st minute but missed the target by inches. Five minutes later Fazeel supplied a good ball to Patrick, who had only the keeper to beat but failed to do so as Athif
grabbed a marvelous save to send the ball away for a corner.

Victory was awarded the penalty in the 38th minute for Akram’s foul on Ahmed Rasheed. Ibrahim Fazeel scored nicely to make it 2-0.

Maziya scored in the dying minutes of first half as Umair’s free kick beat keeper Faisal from far post.

In the 87th minute Athif had another goal saving effort as he picked up Shimaz’s poor shot from the goal line.

With a minute remaining, Maziya went very close to an equalizer but Akram’s acrobatic effort was blocked by the keeper.

Speaking to the press after the match, Victory’s coach Suzain said that he was pleased with the performance of his team.

“I was very pleased with the performance of our team. As I said before the match, that Maziya would pressure us and they would utilize the mistakes we commit. But,
we manage to hold them. They did not create many chances infront of our goal”

“But we created a lot of chances. The chance that Shimaz got, we should have converted it to a goal.”

“From the angle I saw, I feel the goal keeper did enough to keep it away from the line. I don’t think it past the goal line”

Suzain also noted that there were no combination problems, but the small mistakes that the defence committed put them in pressure.

“I don’t think there was any combination problems in the defense line. But the small mistakes that they made put them under pressure”

Meanwhile, Maziya’s coach Ismail Mahfooz said that they made simple mistakes and they have to correct those in the next matches.

“We made simple mistakes and they utilized those to convert it into goals. We need to correct those mistakes. I feel we would be able to correct those mistakes in the
next matches”

“The new players have blended into the team very well. They have been practicing very well. Today, we played very well for most part of the match, but lost concentration in between”

“I don’t think losing this match would have much impact as this is a quite long season”