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Punjab defended its championship by defeating the favorites Services by a solitary goal and thus lifted the 62nd Santosh Trophy national football championship title at the Bakshi stadium in Srinagar on Sunday. Services were the favorites as they had defeated the Punjab in the quarter final stages of the tournament. But Punjab took the revenge displaying an all-round performance in the match.

Both of the teams were almost equals to each other but it was Punjab players who performed better than their adversaries when the situation was demanding. Punjab proved to be the better side on display and their striking trio of Amandeep Singh, Balraj and Balwant Singh kept on attacking in a well mannered and planned way posing serious threats to the Services goal. They got many chances to increase the winning goal margin but could not convert them in reality and it was also the Services skipper and custodian who did not allow them to increase the winning margin and thus keeping his team in the hunt till the end.

Services had qualified for the Santosh Trophy final after the gap of 39 years and were favorite side to win the final. They also paid the price for highly relying on their star striker who was rendered ineffective by the Punjab defenders as they did not gave him little opportunity to break free. Though he could not watch the trophy as he would have preferred was gifted away to his adversaries but he was awarded Player of the Tournament. It was only in the ninth minute of the match he could attack the Punjab goal that was collected by Punjab keeper Karanjit Singh. Though the Serviced players attacked the Punjab goal many times it was Karanjit Singh who thwarted all their attempts to neutralize the score.

Though Punjab dominated the match most of the time but they could not increase the winning margin and even missed some golden chances. Punjab though kept the opposite side pressure, pouring forward it was only in the 54^th minute of the match that the combined attack by Balraj and Satkar Singh brought the opposition keeper Robikanta Singh out of his box and this moment turned out to be the beginning of the ending of the Services’ dream. And this single shot was enough to declare Punjab the winner of the Santosh Trophy.