Football
Butuan booters subdue CDO in PFF U-23 tournament
InterAksyon.com/Erwin Mascarinas
BUTUAN CITY – With enthusiasm and a tight offense, the Butuan-Agusan del Norte Football Association (BANFA) defeated Cagayan de Oro-Misamis Oriental Football Association (CMOFA), 3-0 last Saturday, during the Philippine Football Federation Suzuki Under-23 National Cup qualifying round match held at the Caraga State University-Cabadbaran campus football field in Cabadbaran City.
“The victory of BANFA demonstrated the vast potential our football players have. Although this team was organized only recently for the PFF Suzuki Cup, they have already shown superiority in terms of skills,” said Butuan City vice mayor Lawrence Fortun, who is also president of BANFA.
Fortun added that as they continue to play together and gel as a team, they will rise to be a deserving frontrunner in this qualifying round.
“With each game they have shown a huge improvement with their cohesiveness and has built up their confidence. They have what it takes to win, we just have to optimize their potentials,” he said.
“I think in terms of fitness, BANFA have faster strikers but they need to work on their defense. If they can work it out and strengthen their defense as well as offense, BANFA has a chance to make it represent Northern Mindanao in the Mindanao finals,” said Erwin Protacio, PFF competitions coordinator for Mindanao.
Protacio pointed out that the beauty about the home-away games is that it is hard to predict the result, especially if it is played on the home turf.
After several failed goal tries early in the game, BANFA striker Jocel Atoel scored the first goal at the 9th minute. At around the 68th minute, BANFA again scored with an amazing shot from Charles Gamotan, followed by the third goal by Clinton Detoya at the 73rd sealing the victory for BANFA.
The BANFA team expressed hopes that they would be able to win in the next couple of games and rise to the top of the Northern Mindanao division.
