The Greens faced their first defeat of the season on Friday afternoon.
Sporting Clube de Goa came from a goal down to beat Salgaocar FC by a 2-1 margin in the cross-town derby of the Goa Professional League played at Duler Stadium earlier today.
Sporting coach Mateus Costa made the changes in wholesale to his side following a 3-0 defeat against Dempo SC as Cajetan Fernandes, Schubert D’Costa, George D’Souza, Marcus Mascarenhas, Ganesh Thakur and Alton Vaz made into the cut, whereas Karan Shirodkar and Rollwin Almeida were the two changes in the Salgaocar’s XI who registered a comeback victory against Bardez FC in the last match.
Salgaocar skipper Mackroy Peixoto should have taken his side into the lead in the very 2nd minute when he was brilliantly fed by U-20 winger Rollwin but the midfielder shot wide from inside the box. Two minutes later, they had another chance to surge ahead when Ronaldo Oliveira tried to find Devendra Murgaonkar in the box with a curling cross but Sporting custodian Melroy Fernandes came off the line to collect it before the striker could do any damage.
Salgaocar came with another attack in the 18th minutes when Murgaonkar set up Ronaldo with a through pass in the box but the striker’s weak shot was easily collected by Sporting keeper Melroy.
At the other end, Salgaocar keeper Jason D’Mello was lucky not to concede in the 20th minute when he made no effort to clear Sporting U-20 midfielder Stendly Fernandes’ shot which rebound off the crossbar.
Salgaocar finally surged ahead just after the half-hour mark when Rolling once again came with a curling cross to Ronaldo whose shot was blocked by Sporting keeper Melroy but the custodian pulled down the striker in the process to clear the danger as referee David Rebello quickly pointed towards the penalty spot. Salgaocar skipper Mackroy scored from the spot to make it 1-0 for the Green Brigade.
Trailing by a goal, Sporting coach Costa brought in Victorino Fernandes to replace U-20 Joston Cardoz but the striker could not make any changes to the scoresheet until the halftime.
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However, just after crossing the ends, Victorino had a chance to level the terms when Stendly set up Sporting skipper with just keeper to beat but his shot was brilliantly blocked by Salgaocar custodian Jason. A few minutes later, Victorino wasted another great opportunity to equalise as a Glan curled the ball in the box where keeper Jason failed to collect the ball which landed into Victorino’s feet but the striker’s goalbound shot was excellently cleared off the goalline by Salgaocar defender Karan.
After some probing attacks, Flaming Orange finally managed to level back in the 76th minutes when a well-taken free kick by George was intercepted by Salgaocar defender Saurabh Patil which rebounded off his own keeper and rolled to well-placed Marcus in the goalmouth. The latter made no mistake to slot the ball home from close to make it 1-1.
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Sporting continued their attacks and found the winners in the 83rd minutes as Cajetan superbly scored from the 25-yards free kick making it 2-1 for the Flaming Orange.
Salgaocar also had a chance to make it all square in the added time when their striker sent a ball in the box to Stephen Satarkar but the forward failed to keep his header on the target with Sporting keeper Melroy completely out of position.