Sporting Goa beat SESA FA in AWES Cup

Two first half goals from Victorino Fernandes and Mauvin Borges were enough for the Flaming Oranje to seal the victory.

Sporting Clube de Goa started their AWES Cup campaign with a win as they downed SESA Football Academy by 2-0 in the cup match played at Tilak Maidan, Vasco, earlier today.

Sporting had almost retained most of their players from the last season so it was similar to last season’s squad which featured in their gaffer Mateus Costa’s starting XI, with their star striker Victorino Fernandes leading from the front, while Girish Naik and Mauvin Borges were given the responsibilities of both the flanks. At the other hand, SESA head coach Ajay Acharya had retained six of their graduates which include defender Anil Chawan, Mark Barreto, Kunal Salgaokar, Vishnu Gosavi, Dhiraj Chauhan and Ashley Cardozo. Joston Pereira and Shoaib Akhtar were some new faces in the lineup for the Academy boys.  

The match started with a midfield play from both the sides which ended with an opening goal from the Flaming Orange in the 14th minutes when Girish’s fine cross from the right where Mauvin failed to connect it but the skipper Victorino made no mistake to put in the back of the net from close to make it 1-0 for his side.

Sporting doubled their lead in the 33rd minutes when SESA defender Dhiraj failed to clear Ganesh Thakur’s cross from the same flank where Mauvin shot past SESA keeper Sapam Nonigoparb to make it 2-0 for the Panjim based club.

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Just before the halftime, SESA had a great chance to reduce the margin when Javad P. made a superb run and easily cut past two defenders in the box but SESA forwards failed to connect from close.

On crossing over, Sporting had another chance to inflate their lead as this time Ganesh made a superb run on the wing cutting past few defenders but his powerful shot from inside the box was brilliantly tipped for a corner by SESA custodian Sapam. They wasted another open chance to make it 3-0 in the 75th minutes when substitute Marcus Mascarenhas was in the commanding position to score but the striker shot found the side netting with opponent’s keeper Sapam completely out of position.

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SESA had the best chance of the match in the 77th minutes when their midfielders Mark and Ashley combined well at the flank and found Joston at the top of the box but midfielder shot in the waiting hands of Sporting keeper Melroy Fernandes.

Another easy chance went into vain for Sporting in the closing stage of the match when SESA keeper Sapam came off his line to clear the danger but failed. Taking advantage of the same Marcus directly went for the glory but SESA defender Anil made a goalline clearance to limit the damage.