Kouame's late strike helped Calangute to hold Sporting Goa in Goa Pro League

The draw dents the Flaming Orange's title race ...

Sporting Clube de Goa were held on to a 1 – 1 draw by Calangute Association in a Goa Pro League encounter at Duler Stadium on Wednesday evening. Victorino Fernandes (79’) gave the lead to Sporting with a fantastic header while Calangute equalized through a Kouame Joaeph (88') header at the other end.

The first half turned out to be drab affair as both teams piled up their defensive tactics to avoid conceding any goals. Calangute were the first to come close to scoring when a well directed Kouame free kick was kept out by the woodwork. Sporting quickly responded with a good move at the other end to win a corner. Skipper Cajetan Fernandes sent in a good ball finding Francis Dadzie who headed it to Victorino but the final strike was cleared by Calangute defenders. Sporting once again had a good opportunity when a George D’Souza free kick was right on target but the Calangute keeper barely managed to punch it out for a corner. The match stayed goalless at the break.

Crossing over Sporting mounted some good pressure. Gaffer Costa introduced Joesph Pereira and Seriton Fernandes up front to provide support for Dadzie and Victorino. The all out attack formation worked well for the Panjim side as they managed to penetrate a heavily fortified Calngute defense. The move almost paid off in the 67th minute when Dadzie found a charging Joesph on the left, however the latter’s strike went inches wide off the post.

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In the 72nd minute Cajetan Fernandes saw his free kick miss the target by a whisker. It was Victorino’s exceptional brilliance in the 79th minute which gave Sporting the lead when he got hold of a good pass from Joseph to beat his marker and get a strike which was blocked by the Calangute keeper. However Victorino had different plans he continued his run to rise high in the air to head the ball past a thickly flooded Calangute box to make it 1 – 0 in favour of the visitors.

After maintaining some good pressure Sporting gave away a silly corner which ended up costing them 2 points. Agnelo Colaco who delivered a perfect corner for Calangute finding Salim Mohammed who served it on a platter for Kouame Joaeph to head in the equalizer for Calangute. With this draw Sporting stay at the 2nd position with 33 points from 16 matches while  Calangute remain on 4th with 32 points from 17 outings.