From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network - Panaji 

Goa, Nov 23: To commemorate the victory of 1971 war against Pakistan, Indian Navy celebrates December 4 every year as Navy Day. Towards this, Goa naval area conducts plethora of events in the months of November and December and after a gap of 15 years Goa naval area has revived the tradition of conduct of Goa Navy Cup Football tournament in which three village panchayat teams viz Chicolna, Velsao and Chicalim along with one team from Goa Naval Area participated on November 21 and 22 at GNA Stadium.

The tournament was organized in a group knockout based format. In the first match Chicolna beat GNA team 4 – 2 in penalty shootout. The second game between Velsao and Chicalim also went into penalty shootout stage and was won by Velsao 3 – 1. The final match between Chicolna and Velsao was a thriller as both teams were equally poised and spectators were enthralled to see Edwin Carvalho of Chicolna team scoring a superb goal just before the end of second half and securing victory of his team in the tournament.

Commodore N Balakrishnan, Commodore Superintendent of Naval Aircraft Yard (Goa) was the chief guest for the final match and distributed prizes to the teams and congratulated the coordinators and participants and mentioned that this tournament would be an annual event with probably more teams from various village panchayats participating. The tournament was organized by Regional Aeronautical Quality Assurance Service (Goa).