Dempo trash Vasco in the Goa Pro League

Felix Chidi scored his second hat-trick of the season in the Golden Eagles’ rout…

Dempo Sports Club continued their superb run in the league as they registered an overpowering 7-3 win over Vasco Sports Club in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium earlier today. Dempo are in fantastic form in the league as they have recently registered a massive 7-0 win over Santa Cruz Club of Cavelossim. While Vasco are going through a bad phase as they were without a win in eight matches. Dempo coach Mauricio Afonso made only change to his side as Mario Mascarenhas was back in the starting XI replacing injured skipper Shallum Pires. The Vasco coach Eban Mesquita also made a single change in the squad as he gave a start to Elron Rodrigues replacing Floyd Fernandes. The match started with dominant play from the Golden Eagles. They stifled their opponents with complete possession and scored the first goal of the match within the first five minutes. Defender Nickson Castanha set up a beautiful pass to Felix Odili Chidi, who cut past two defenders to enter the box and calmly finished it in the net. To the surprise of many, Vasco came up with an equalizer within minutes after conceding. Nigerian striker Franck Alves Kouassi got hold of a pass from Jaison Vaz on the halfway line, covered ground dribbling past three defenders and shot from the edge of the box which finished in the net. The Portside surprised the visitors by taking the lead within the next five minutes when the Dempo defense failed to clear Jaison’s corner. Taking advantage of the same Rovan Pereira blasted a shot from inside the box into the back of the nylons. Trailing by a goal Dempo regrouped and came outl attacking scoring two more goals. First, Germanpreet Singh’s clinical tap in directly rolled into Vasco’s goal. Later, Beevan D’Mello made it 3-2 for the Panjim-based club when he stylishly finished the ball sending keeper Shilton Fernandes the wrong way. Winger Anthony Dsouza contributed in Germanpreet’s goal, while Felix assisted in Beevan’s goal. They had one more chance before the end of first half, but U20 Kapil Hobble missed a sitter in front of goal off Germanpreet’s low cross. The Dempo tactician Afonso came up with a double substitution at half-time as he brought on Joaquim Abranches and Gabriel Fernandes in place of Kapil and Anthony. Coming into the second half, they just took few minutes to inflate their lead as Felix scored his second and the team’s fourth goal. Germanpreet was the architect of the goal. A few minutes later, Dempo came close to scoring once again but Joaquim shot wide from inside the box. Finally, both half-time substitutes combined well to score the team’s fifth goal. Joaquim flawlessly crossed from the left to see his effort get rewarded when a well-positioned Gabriel’s tap in eased past keeper Shilton and settled into the goal. Energized by the goals, the Golden Eagles scored one more through Beevan’s header off Mario’s short corner. In the very next minute, Beevan had an opportunity to complete his hat-trick but keeper Shilton made a diving save to deny him. On the counter-attack, the skipper Jaison reduced the margin of Vasco’s when he scored beating Dempo keeper Priyant Singh to make it 3-6 for the Portside. Finally Felix stylishly completed his hat-trick with a superb goal in the last minutes of regular time. The Dempo head coach Afonso said, “Though we scored seven goals, I am happy with the results but not with the performance of my team. Our defenders made many mistakes and that was the reason we conceded those three goals.” With this massive win, Dempo moved to the 2nd place with 25 points from 12 matches, while Vasco remain 8th in the league table with just 10 points from 12 matches. Photo © : RJ 28 [KH_RELATED_NEWS title="Related News"][/KH_RELATED_NEWS]