Panjim Footballers go down fighting to determined Calangute Association in GPL

Ashok Megheri scored the winner for the Beachside club on the hour mark.

Calangute Association edged out Panjim Footballers as they registered a solitary goal win in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium earlier today.

With today’s win, Calangute climbed to 5th position with 22 points from 17 matches, while Panjim continued to struggle in the bottom half of the league table with just 15 points from 16 matches. 

Panjim coach Savio Vaz made two changes to his side following a draw against Vasco SC in the last match as Sachidanand Satelkar and Kunal Kundaikar made into the cut, while Calangute who also had a drawn against FC Bardez in the previous round match, had only one change as Domnic Fernandes was back in the lineup.

Calangute started the match with a swift attack in the very first minutes when Josley Dias intercepted a back pass from opponents and tried his luck from the top of the box but his scorching shot just went over the crossbar. A few minutes later, Calangute had the best chance to open their account when Josley made a superb lob pass to Joston Pereira in the box but the midfielder failed to control the ball with just rival keeper at the stake.

Goa Professional League Table

Another chance went begging for the beachside in the 19th minutes when u-20 winger Leslee Britto made a diagonal pass to Mayur Satelkar in the box but Panjim keeper Gurpreet Singh made a brilliant block to save Mayur’s shot from point-blank range.

Panjim had only one great opportunity in the entire session when their Israeli midfielder made a pin-point perfect cross to Sachidanand failed to control the ball in the box as Calangute keeper quickly get on the ball.

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The second session started with a midfield play for first 15 minutes as both the teams tried to keep the ball, which ended with a goal from Calangute at the hour mark when Leslee made a fine cross to substitute Ashok Megheri in the box who made no mistake to head the ball home from close making it 1-0 for the Beachside.

The rest of the match witnesses an end-to-end play where Panjim tried hard to get back into the match but Calangute defence led by Amar Halankar cleared every danger to book all three points from the match.