Pele Football Club suffered their first defeat of the year at the hands of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) on Wednesday evening in the Georgetown Football Association’s Banks Premium Beer Knockout Competition at the Tucville playfield.
Pele who have not lost an encounter since the commencement of the 2008-2009 Kashif & Shanghai Tour-nament went down 2–0 to the GDF in the feature match of the evening that also saw Sunburst Camptown recording a 2–1 victory against Santos FC.
GDF and Sunburst Camptown will now meet Alpha United and Fruta Conquerors in the semi-final round of the competition on April 12.
In the Pele/GDF quarterfinal match-up the recently crowned Mayor’s Cup champs looked a bit disorganized and often clustered at the centre of the field to the advantage of the GDF.
Pele’s goalkeeper Shemroy Arthur who had a terrific tournament between the uprights in the recently-concluded Mayor’s Cup tourney seemed out of sorts on Wednesday while on the opposite end of the field GDF’s Akel Clarke was well composed throughout the entire 90 minutes.
Pele attacked the goal in the opening minutes but were put on the back foot when the GDF got into their stride and built up some plays that ended with numerous shots on goal.
After the first 45 minutes without either team scoring the GDF drew first blood when there was a misunderstanding between Pele’s custodian and a defender and Warren Gilkes intercepted the ball and scored in the 68th minute.
The GDF then put the icing on the cake in the 87th minute, compliments of a Gavin Wilson strike. Wilson who came on in the 53rd minute pressured the ball after Pele’s custodian fumbled during an attempt to gather it and the ball went through his legs and Wilson made no mistake firing it to the back of the net.
Sunburst Camptown troubled the score line first in the 61st minute of their encounter when a play that came storming down from mid-field was transferred to the right flank and flew into the 18-yard box from the energetic Kwane La Fluer.
Not long after, the equalizer came along when Chris Duggan was found unmarked by his teammate near the goal and blasted it between the uprights in the 77th minute. That goal took them into extra time and Camptown proved to be the superior team.
The decider of the evening came from a Telson McKinnon strike in the fifth minute of extra-time. McKinnon scored from a ball fired to the keeper who could not control it and McKinnon in the 18-yard box at the time slammed it into the back of the net to give his team the lead.
