The Correia Memorial Tournament has not been kind to class 10C . In each of the previous tournaments 10C had reached the finals,only to lose,each time,to the other finalist.Classes 10A, 10B and 10D had all won the tournament (In 2018,2019 and 2022) 10C never managed to win.
Would history repeat itself one more time? Nigel D’souza,midfield maestro and playmaker from Class 10C,tells us the tale of how his team made history.
DAY #1
It was the first day of the tournament. We were ready. We had practiced. Our first game was against 10B and Lambert,our captain, reminded us once again that we had the best players in school and that we were the better team.Everyone had their game face on and morale was high. The whistle sounded and Correia Memorial 2023 kicked off. Everyone had their money on 10C thinking it would be an easy win but things went south pretty soon.
Zidane Lobo,captain of 10B,scored against us against the run of play.All our efforts to get an equaliser came to nothing and things were getting desperate.At the last,when all hope was gone,Hussain gave us the equaliser.The game ended in a draw.
DAY #2
We did not have much time to analyse our performance but over confidence might have been a factor.Our next league game against 9D was the very next day.9D had won their first game and were high on confidence and we were struggling already. Our second game ended in a goalless draw.Two points from 2 games and elimination stared us in the face.
DAY #3
The last game (against 9C ) of the league stage was on the next day and we knew that,tired legs or not,it was a must win game for us if we were to have any chance to make it to the semis.
But despite all our resolve we conceded a goal in the 5th minute of the game.Time to bow out gracefully? – not at all. That early goal gave us a shock and the shock helped us to finally find our long lost rhythm.The equaliser was a bullet from the half line by Aaron.Shortly after that Lambert chipped in with a curler to make it 2-1.Silas poached a third and Vaibhav and me scored two more goals off free kicks that Messi would have clapped for –had he been around and not on his way to Miami.The game ended at 5-1 and 10C had made it to the semi finals.
SEMI FINALS
10 A was a team that was going to give us a tough match. Vaibhav drew first blood and scored for us early in the first half. We held our lead till half time even though 10A tried very hard to break our defence. We kept possession for a large part of the second half but then suddenly,out of nowhere,Prathamesh beat our offside trap,broke through our back line,and was one on one with our goalkeeper Khubaib.,For a few heartstopping moments we thought that Prathamesh,with only the goalkeeper to beat, would surely score. However that was not to be. It was Khubaib who became the hero of the day. He channelled his inner Emi Martinez and saved the shot.The final whistle blew and we had done it, we won the game.
For the fourth time in four tournaments,10C were in the finals once again
FINALS
Just like Messi had been waiting for a long time to win a World Cup for Argentina,10C had been waiting for a long time to win the Correia Memorial Tournament. And just like Messi’s dream finally came true in Qatar 2022 ,10’s dream also came true in Correia Memorial 2023.
In the end,the final game against class 9D,turned out to be very one sided .Liam scored in the 7th minute and scored one more shortly after that.Silas scored one more in the 2nd half and 9D had no against all odds type comeback.When the final whistle blew the score line was 3-0 and 10C had got that long awaited win at last.
By Nigel D’souza -Class 10C
Some photographs of the victors celebrating their great victory.
St Augustine's School 
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