S. Thomas’ College retained the Blue Derby Trophy when they edged out traditional rivals Royal College 4-2 on penalties in their annual football encounter played at the Racecourse Grounds in Colombo yesterday.
After the game ended in a 0-0 draw during the normal 90 minutes of play, the match went into penalties and the Thomians held their nerves under tremendous pressure to snatch a dramatic victory despite the fading light.
Royal, of course, had a chance of pulling off the game when S. Thomas’ missed the third kick during the shootout. However, the pressure had a heavy toll on the Royal side as they fumbled with their third and fourth attempts in a bizarre fashion. In contrast, S. Thomas’ kept their heads down and eventually delivered the knock-out blow when they fired across the fourth penalty kick past the Royal goalkeeper.
Earlier, the two teams struggled to break the deadlock even though S. Thomas’ had the momentum in the second half, where they missed out a couple of good scoring opportunities. In fact, the Thomians enjoyed 58 percent of possession during this game and had as many as 14 shots at the goal, with nine of them coming in the second half.
In contrast, Royal had plenty of injury concerns in the second half and had a yellow card handed on one of their players.
