Vasco held Calangute in the Goa Pro League

The Portside club earned their first point in six league matches…

Vasco Sports Club came from a goal down to hold Calangute Association as they registered a 1-1 draw in the Goa Professional League match played at Duler Stadium earlier today. Calangute were in superb form as they had won their last three matches, with the latest coming against Santa Cruz Club of Cavelossim last week. While Vasco were struggling in the league and were winless in the last five matches. Both the teams played possession football but Calangute were the better side and controlled the entire match with better possession and attacking football. The Portside started the match on an attacking note and created the first chance of the match in the 10th minute when skipper Jaison Vaz got hold of the perfect pass from Franck Alves Kouassi, but failed to beat the Calangute keeper Melroy Fernandes in a one-on-one situation. At the other end, Calangute’s Sunny Fernandes collected a long ball from defender Raju Haldankar, but the striker’s shot was easily collected by Vasco keeper Shilton Fernandes. Vasco custodian Shilton came up with two back-to-back saves to keep the scores level. First, he brilliantly blocked Sunny's close range shot, the ball rolled to the same striker again but the Vasco keeper made no mistake to deny him a second time. The striker Sunny was in the action again when he dribbled past Vasco keeper Shilton but failed to keep his chipped shot on target. But the striker got his reward in the 38th minutes when Bonny Niasso found him in the box with a long ball from the halfway line, the striker made no mistake to tap the ball home making it 1-0 for the North Goa club. After the resumption of play, the match was restricted to midfield play as both teams were not showing any efforts to get in the final third. But surprisingly Vasco found the equalizer when Frank dribbled past two defenders and placed the ball in the back of the net. U20 Kingslee Fernandes was the architect of the goal. Even after conceding a goal Calangute’s midfielders and forwards were not interested in the winner and once again the ball was rolling in the midfield only. In the dying minutes of the match, Calangute had one last chance of the match. But Yogesh Kadam’s sparkling shot missed the target by hairline distance. This draw made no difference to Calangute’s standing in the league table as they remain in 5th place with 19 points from 11 matches. While Vasco have 9 points from 11 matches and stands 8th in the league table.