MANILA, Philippines - Gelo Diamante made a triumphant return from injury, blasting a late goal to power La Salle to a pulsating 1-0 win over Ateneo and into the UAAP Season 77 men’s football final yesterday before a good Sunday crowd at Rizal Memorial Stadium.
Seeing action for the first time since going down with a broken clavicle last January, Diamante made a big impact at once and fired the marginal strike from outside the box at the 88th minute to secure the victory and send the Green Booters to their first championship stint since Season 68.
La Salle, the top seed at the end of the elims, will face off with the winner of last night’s other Last-4 duel pitting No. 2 defending champion Far Eastern U and third seed University of the Philippines, in a KO for the crown on Sunday.
“I took a chance on him and he did really well,” DLSU coach Hans Smit said of Diamante, one of their top scorers who missed out the entire second round.
“In a game like this, you need all your weapons regardless kung pilay (of injury) or whatever. We want to make it to the finals and so we had to go through the semis (against Ateneo). So I told him to be ready,” he added.
For a good majority of the game, the rivals couldn’t find the mark and battled to a scoreless standoff.
Then Smit tapped Diamante to replace his brother Gio at the 75th and though still not 100 percent, his presence changed the game. With two minutes before whistle, Diamante found enough room to operate and gamely sent the ball home to the delight of the gallery in green.