Goa Pro League: Sporting Clube de Goa, Salgaocar share spoils

The Greens conceded their first goal of the season after keeping six clean sheets.

Sporting Clube de Goa held Salgaocar FC to a 1-1 draw in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium on Sunday.

Marcus Mascarenhas opened the tally for Sporting in the 5th minute, while Saeesh Halarnkar pulled one back from the spot-kick in the 29th minute.

Brendon Gomes and Joel Colaco made the first start of the season for the Flaming Orange, while Girish Naik and Dattaraj Gaonkar were back in the Savio Vaz’s XI after missing out in the last match where they were held to a 1-1 draw by Sesa FA. On the other hand, Greens coach Levino Pereira named unchanged XI following their easy win over Vasco SC in the previous match.

It was not a great start for Salgaocar as they conceded their first goal of the season in the 5th minute after keeping a clean sheet for six matches. Sporting’s debutant Joel darted in the box cutting past two opponents on his way and squared it to Philip Odogwu who in turn released it to unmarked Marcus Mascarenhas. The latter made no mistake to slot the ball in the net making it 1-0 for the Flaming Orange.

Joel once again justified the decision of his coach to start him as he made another brilliant run and perfectly curled the ball to his teammate Dattaraj. However, the forward could not put power in his header from close as Salgaocar keeper Jason D’Mello made an easy collection.

Salgaocar took some time to settle down from the early goal and came close to scoring in the 29th minute when Ribhav Sardesai made a defence-splitting through pass to Steflon D’costa. But Sporting skipper Alton Vaz brought him down in the box to give away a penalty kick. Saeesh Halarnkar calmly sent the rival keeper the wrong way and netted the ball in the back of the nylons to make it all square.

A few minutes later, the Greens should have taken the lead. Steflon found himself in the box with the ball at his feet, but Sporting defender Kunal Kundaikar cleared the ball on time which hit his teammate Alton before going out for a corner. Sporting also had an opportunity to once again take the lead in the added minutes of the half as their forward Marcus made a darting run cutting past few opponents on his way. However, he failed to keep his strike on target from close with just the rival keeper Jason at stake.

Salgaocar coach Levino brought-in Stephen Satarkar in the early second half to sharpen their attack, however, the lad could not make any change to the scoreline until the full-time.

At the other end, Sporting were awarded a freekick at the hour mark as their substitute defender Myron Fernandes nicely curled the ball to Alton in the box, but his header missed the target narrowly. They should have taken the lead in the 65th minute when Salgaocar midfielder Selwyn Miranda made a weak back pass which was intercepted by Sporting Clube's Myron and entered the box. But his shot was brilliantly blocked by Salgaocar custodian Jason while he once again dived to his right to push Myron’s second attempt for a corner.

The last few minutes saw Salgaocar completely dominating Sporting with their attacking play, but could not make most of the opportunities. They had the best chance to seal the match in the 80th minute when Prathamesh sent a lobbed pass to Stephen who saw Sporting keeper marching towards him and lobbed the ball towards goal but it missed the target by a whisker. While in the added minutes, substitute Fhezer Gomes made a cross to Stephen in the box, but the Sporting keeper made a diving effort to keep his side safe. 

For more updates, follow Khel Now on Twitter, Instagram and join our community on Telegram.