LAHORE, Jan 31: Luckless Dir remained unlucky in their match against the Northern Areas in Group ‘B’ of the National Under-13 Festival of Football-2009 to lose to Northern Areas 2-3 at Lahore’s Model Town Football Academy (MTFA) Ground on Saturday.

The little-known outfit coached by Fazle Ghaffar put up gallantly to hold the strong Northern Areas team 0-0 until halftime. But the tie-breaker saw Dir suffering a 2-3 loss with Rizwan Ali and Jawwad Hussain getting the goals. Northern Areas struck three goals through Adnan Shah, Maqsood Hussain and Abdul Rehman.

Earlier, the night matches on Friday saw Balochistan getting rid of AJK 2-0 in Group ‘A’. Naik Nazar got the quickest goal of the event just 37 seconds into the match. Midfielder Shahryar Khan made it 2-0 in the third minute. The remaining 57 minutes failed to produce any goals.

The Group ‘C’ encounter saw NWFP overcoming Model Town Football Academy (MTFA) 2-0. Striker Fahimullah landed the opener in the 37th minute while winger Aflan Shah added another in the closing seconds.

Meanwhile, Karachi Reds earned their second consecutive win in Group ‘D’ when they overwhelmed Lahore’s Wohaib FC 4-1.

Spearhead Jahanzeb was the star performer with two goals in the third and 25th minutes while midfielder Hyder Ali (first min) and defender Mohammad Younus (47th min) were the other scorers.There will be two quarter-finals played on Sunday.