KARACHI: Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST) and Institute of Business Management (IoBM) will contest the 12th AKU Inter-University Football Tournament final after recording narrow wins in semi-finals on Friday.

IoBM, who had reached the last four after thrashing Ziauddin University (ZU) 6-1 in the quarter-finals the other day, edged past hosts Aga Khan University (AKU) 1-0 courtesy Hamza Shahid’s late strike to seal their berth in Saturday’s final.

While the first semi-final was a tight one, the other was more open with SZABIST prevailing in a seven-goal thriller against a resilient Bahria University (BU).

Both SZABIST and BU had reached the last-four stage following tense penalty shootout victories over Hamdard University (HU) and the Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology (SSUET) respectively.

Their clash too could’ve gone to penalties but SZABIST held on in the final few minutes to win 4-3.

Arsal Shakeel gave them a real scare when he scored twice in the space of a minute with just 60 seconds to go on the clock but SZABIST’s advantage – they had seized a 4-0 lead by the 40thminute – ultimately proved too much.

Goals by Daniyal Qayyam, Hassan Zia, Hassan Rashid and Ali Hassan had given SZABIST a comfortable lead before Shehroze Sheikh sparked a comeback for BU which eventually fell just short.

On Thursday, barring IoBM’s hammering of ZU, all three games were decided on penalties.

BU won a penalty shootout 5-3 against SSUET after the match had ended 1-1 in regulation time.

SZABIST edged past HU 6-5 in another shootout following a 2-2 draw in normal time while AKU won 4-3 on penalties after a 1-1 stalemate with the Institute of Business Administration.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2014