Salgaocar blank Signals in GPL

Ronaldo Oliveira shone in the Greens' victory with a brace.

Salgaocar FC started their Goa Professional League campaign with a bang as they hammered Corps of Signals by 4-0 margin in the match played at Duler Stadium, earlier today.

Salgaocar were high on confidence after a great performance in the AWES Cup, where they lost to Sporting Clube de Goa in the finals. Their newly appointed coach Levino Pereira had fielded similar side from the season opener cup, whereas, Signals did not have a great pre-season as they lost most of the friendlies in the pre-season.

Salgaocar started the match on an attacking note as they took just three minutes to create the first potent attack when their U20 midfielder Rollwin Almeida went for the glory from the distance but Signals keeper Niyas Mon denied him with a diving effort.

A few minutes later, they had another great opportunity as their skipper Mackroy Peixoto brilliantly cut past a defender in the box and found Samuel Costa in the commanding position with a cut-back but the mideo tap missed the target by few inches.

Another opportunity went into the vain for the Green Brigade in the 29th minutes as this time Samuel made a brilliant footwork to dribble past few opponents and entered the box but failed to keep his shot on target.

Signals’ only close chance came in the 35th minutes as their midfielder Pawan Thakur covered some ground before blasting a sparkling shot from the top of the box but it deflected off the Salgaocar defender before going out for a corner.

On crossing over, Salgaocar’s midfielder Selwyn Miranda had great opportunity to double the lead in the 54th minutes when he was in the commanding position to score but the midfielder shot wide from point-blank range.

However, in the next minutes, Ronaldo Oliveira score the second for the Green Brigade when Signals defender Praful Surin failed to clear opponent’s long clearance. Taking advantage of the same, Ronaldo brilliantly shot past Signals custodian Mon from the top of the box.

Energized by the second goal, Salgaocar scored two more goals in the next eight minutes as first, Godfray Mascarenhas scored through an overhead kick, off Sanson Pereira’s well-taken corner.

It was just two minutes from the last goal when their skipper Mackroy added his name to the scoresheet as his curling shot gave no chance to the fully stretched keeper Mon, making it 3-0 in the 62nd minute.

They should have added few more in the dying minutes of the match but some poor finishing from forwards restricted the scoreline. In one of these, Denil Rebello’s chip shot was brilliantly tipped by Signals keeper Mon which later hit the crossbar and landed into Devendra Murgaonkar’s feet but he failed to beat the keeper in a one-on-one.

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At the other end, Salgaocar keeper Jason D’Mello was finally tested for the first time in the match when Army men midfielder Roshan Singh shot on the goal from the distance but the custodian brilliantly fisted it over the crossbar.

Salgaocar added another to their tally in the added time as Devendra and Ronaldo combined well in the opponent’s box where Devendra brilliantly set up his teammate in the goalmouth, who slotted the ball home from close to make it 4-0 for the Green Brigade.