Dempo blank Churchill Brothers, finish runners-up in GPL

Mario Mascarenhas and Jaison Vaz scored for the Golden Eagles.

Dempo Sports Club concluded their season on a winning note as they eased past Churchill Brothers Sports Club by a 2-0 margin in their last Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium earlier today.

With these three points, Dempo finished their season in a runners-up position with 48 points, while Churchill concluded at the 7th position with just 26 points.

Churchill who lost to Sporting Clube de Goa in the finals of the Goa Police Cup had few changes as their coach Alfred Fernandes named Arvind Silva, Sevlon Cardozo and Nicholas Fernandes in the starting Xi, Whereas, Dempo coach Samir Naik made five changes to his side which lost to the same opponents in the quarter-finals of the GPC as Suraj Hadkonkar, Mario Mascarenhas, Gaurish Naik, Vinit Bugde and Edwin Viegas found their names in the playing XI. 

The match was restricted to the midfield play in the first 15 minutes where Dempo were the dominant side with better possession but could not manage to convert it into the goals. They came close to scoring in the 17th minute when their midfielder Gaurish tried his luck from the distance but his goalbound shot was nicely fisted over the crossbar by Churchill keeper James Kithan.

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Dempo opened their account from the resultant corner as Latesh Mandrekar’s fine corner was quickly tapped in by Mario to put Dempo into the lead.

A few minutes later, Suraj should have doubled the lead for the Golden Eagles when he was nicely set up by Gaurish with a defence-splitting through pass but the striker’s shot was brilliantly blocked by the Churchill custodian.

Dempo had two more chances to inflate their lead in the 40th minutes but first, Churchill keeper Kithan blocked Latesh in one-on-one, while a few seconds later, he made an acrobatic effort to push Desmon Pereira’s powerful shot from close for a corner.

On changing the ends, Suraj had another golden opportunity to double the tally in the 58th minute but instead of slotting the ball in the empty goal, the forward blasted the ball from 10-yards which went sky-high.

At the other end, Churchill also had a chance to level the terms in the 65th minute when their U-20 Sevlon was in the commanding position to score but the midfielder shot wide from inside the box.

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Dempo finally doubled their lead in the 84th minutes when substitute Beevan D’Mello made a superb through pass to another substitute Jaison Vaz who brilliantly dribbled past a defender and shot past Churchill keeper Kithan from just inside the box to make it 2-0 for his side.