FC Bardez hold Sporting Goa in entertaining GPL encounter

The Flaming Orange wasted an opportunity to regain top spot in the league...

Inacio Colaco scored in the added time as FC Bardez came from three goals down to hold Sporting Clube de Goa to a high scoring 3-3 draw in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium earlier today.

Sporting were unbeaten in the league, while they had defeated table topper Dempo SC in the last match. On the other hand, Bardez had stunned defending champion Salgaocar FC in the previous match.

Girish Naik was back in starting XI for Sporting, whereas their coach Mateus Costa also introduced Nigerian striker Philip Odogwu replacing his counterpart Abiola Afuwape, while Bardez coach Armando Colaco chose to go with the same playing XI which earned him a comeback victory in the last match.

Both teams had equal numbers of opportunities in the first 15 minutes but both the sides failed to break the each other in the final third.

Bardez came with a potent chance in the 15th minutes when Jessel Carneiro released the ball to Inacio Colaco in the box but the midfielder saw his shot deflect off Nigerian defender Sodiq Ibrahim’s leg for a corner.

At the other end, Sporting opened their tally in the 24th minutes as Marcus Mascarenhas sent a short pass to Nigerian Philip on the right wing, who covered some ground to enter the box and shot past Bardez keeper Aliston Fernandes to put his side ahead.

Two minutes later, Flaming Orange had a chance to double their lead when Alesh Sawant made an excellent cross to find Philip in the box but the striker’s shot was just wide.

A few minutes later, Bardez came up with another compelling chance when Kirtikesh Gadekar nicely curled the ball to Clinton Niasso in the box but the striker who scored a brace in the last match was off target this time.

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Sporting’s Philip had another chance in the last few minutes of the first half as he was nicely fed by Glan Martins from a long distance free-kick but Bardez custodian Aliston brilliantly pushed the Nigerian striker’s header for a corner. 

The second half saw Sporting adding two more goals to their tally as first, Victorino Fernandes made a swift run and tried to find his teammate from inside the box but Bardez defender Caitano Viegas tapped his low pass in his own goal making it 2-0 for opponents.

In the 66th minutes, Glan scored the stunner from 30 yards has his powerful shot directly finished in the top corner almost confirming all three points for the Flaming Orange.

However, the match took the twist when Bardez pulled one back in the 71st minutes when Shubham Desai’s shot was blocked by Sporting keeper Ozen Silva, but he failed to clear the danger completely as Chatur Naik tapped in the loose ball making it 1-3 for Bardez.

With just five minutes left to regular time, Sporting returned the favour of the opponent as their defender Ibrahim scored an own goal off Bardez defender Caitano’s low cross in the box.

Pumped up by two quick goals, Bardez came out all attacking and finally scored the equaliser in the last minutes of the added time when Sporting custodian Ozen failed to collect Jessel’s curling cross from the left as Inacio Colaco blasted from 6-yards to take away a point from the hard-fought match.

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With this draw, Bardez remained in fourth place with seven points from five matches, while Sporting wasted a chance to regain top position as they dropped to second with 11 points from same numbers of outings.