Brave Cavelossim halt league leaders Sporting Goa’s winning streak in GPL

The Flaming Orange had won their last nine matches in a row.

Sporting Clube de Goa dropped two important points in the title race as Santa Cruz club of Cavelossim held them to a goalless draw in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium earlier today.

With this draw’ Sporting have 43 points from 17 matches, while Cavelossim has just 8 points from 14 outings.

Sporting had defeated Guardian Angel SC in the last match, while Salgaocar had registered a massive 8-3 win over Cavelossim in the previous round match.

Nigerian striker Abiola Afuwape replaced injured forward Victorino Fernandes, while U-20 keeper Ozen Silva came in for suspended Melroy Fernandes for the Flaming Orange, whereas Ashley Araujo, Samson Simoes and Darren Fernandes were back in the Cavelossim’s starting XI. 

After some end-to-end play in the first 15 minutes, Sporting came close to scoring in the 17th minutes when a well-taken free-kick was placed in the goal by Nigerian forward Philip Odogwu but Cavelossim keeper Razak Devsor came with diving efforts to keep his side safe. Two minutes later, his counterpart Abiola easily cut-past two defenders at the edge of the box and shot on the goal but his strike hit the defender before going out for a corner.

Sporting had the best chance to score in the 26th minutes when Marcus Mascarenhas set up Philip with just keeper to beat but the Nigerian striker shot over the crossbar from close, whereas, a few minutes later, Abiola’s powerful strike from the top of the box was brilliantly blocked by keeper Razak.

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In the added time of the first session, Quan Gomes made a superb through pass to Marcus who easily dribbled past keeper Razak but his placement rebounded off the goalpost, while a minute later, keeper Razak came with a fine save to deny Marcus’ header from close off Abiola’s cross from the right.  

The start of the second session witnessed Sporting continuously attacking opponents defence line but most of their moves were cleared by Cavelossim's last line, while their keeper Razak came with some superb clearance to keep his side away from any danger.

Sporting coach Mateus Costa brought in Sunny Fernandes to replace Abiola in the 56th minutes and within a few seconds after coming in the striker would have scored from his first touch when Daryl Costa found him in the box but the striker saw his header missed the target narrowly.

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A few minutes later, Daryl once again came with a fine cross when he was trying to find Sunny once again but this time Cavelossim keeper Razak collected the ball before the striker could do any damage. Razak was in the action again when he came off his line to pair Peter Carvalho’s header off  Quan Gomes’s cross in the box.

In the closing stage of the match, substitute Joseph Clemente was unlucky, not to score the winner for the Flaming Orange as he saw his header rebound off the goalpost off Cajetan’s free-kick as the match ended in a goalless draw.