Punjab, Wapda advance in National Women Soccer

LAHORE: Punjab beat Army and Wapda edged out Karachi United by narrow margins in the 12th National Women’s Football Championship on Tuesday.

The last day of group matches of the event saw four matches played at both venues. In the first set of matches Army faced off Punjab and JAFA FC played against Gilgit-Baltistan. While in the second set of matches that were played simultaneously at both Karachi Port Trust and Karachi United Stadiums, Diya FC played against Karachi Kickers and Karachi United played at home against Wapda. Punjab managed to shock the defending champions Army winning by a narrow 1-0 margin, which meant that Punjab finished top of the group with 9 points and Army came in second with 6 points. Zulfia scored the only goal of the game in the 4th min to give Punjab the lead. Army tried their best to come back into the game, even getting a penalty kick in their favor but Captain Malika failed to score from the spot kick.

JAFA FC played against Gilgit-Baltistan in other match at the Karachi United stadium and managed to win game 1-0 after Mishal scored for Jafa in the 10th min of the game.

In the second set of matches, Karachi united played against Wapda at home in the Karachi United stadium. The evenly contested match saw the only goal scored of the game in the 90th min when Dua Gillani score for Wapda in the dying minutes of the game.

Whereas, in the match played at KPT stadium, Diya FC beat Karachi Kickers by 3-0. Diya FC got an early lead in the match when Rabia scored in the 2nd min but failed to extend the lead even missing two penalty kicks before Uroosa scored in 71st min and Ameera scores in 78th min to seal the victory for Diya FC. With these results in group A Punjab finished on top, with Army second, Diya FC on third and Karachi kickers finishe 4th.

While in Group B, WAPDA finished on top after winning all three of their matches, KU finished 2nd, JAFA fc 3rd and Gilgit Baltistan finished at the bottom of the group.

The semifinals will be played on January 10 at Karachi United Stadium.