Dempo edge past salgaocar to keep title hopes alive

Beevan and Kapil score in the first half for the Golden Eagles while Clencio comes off the bench to score the only goal for the Green Brigade


MAPUSA: Dempo Sports Club made it double over Salgaocar FC as they edged out the defending champions by 2-1 in the Goa Professional League match, organised by Goa Football Association, played at Duler Stadium, here on Tuesday.
Tuesday’s win helped Dempo to keep their hopes alive in the title race as they stand 2nd with 27 points from 12 matches, while Salgaocar has 11 points from 10 matches. 
Dempo had the upper hand when both the sides met last time in October. However, both the sides had suffered a defeat in the last match as the Green Brigade went down to league leader Sporting Clube de Goa, while the Golden Eagles were eased past by Goan FC in the last match.
The Gaffer Samir Naik made three changes to his side following a defeat in the last match as Nickson Castanha, Desmon Pereira and Latesh Mandrekar found their names in the Dempo starting XI, whereas, Salgaocar coach Norbert Gonsalves made the same number of changes as Samuel Costa, James Fernandes and Stephen Alvares made the cut. 
Dempo were the first to look at the goal in the 15 minutes when Kapil Hoble set up Latesh inside the box with a smart header but the striker’s weak shot was easily collected by keeper S. Rajini Kumar.
In the 26th minute, Dempo once again came close to open their account when Velito nicely jelled up with Beevan D’Mello who lay off him in the box but Velito’s sparkling shot was pushed for a corner by keeper Rajini.
From the resultant corner off Nickson Castanha, Desmon saw his shot rebound off the crossbar but well positioned Beevan made no mistake to tap the ball home from close to put his side ahead in the 27th minutes.
Pumped up by the goal, Dempo added another to their tally in the 41st minute when Kapil made individual efforts, dribbling past two defenders in his run and finished the ball in the back of the nylons with a low shot from the edge of the box to make it 2-0 for his side.
Down by two goals, Salgaocar coach Norbert made a double substitution at the half-time as Clencio Pinto replaced Stephen, while James made way for Denil Rebello.
On changing the ends, Salgaocar should have scored in the 52nd minute when their Nigerian striker Joel Sunday found Devendra with just keeper to beat but the forward fumbled with the ball.
However, at the hour mark, substitute Clencio made no mistake to tap the ball home off the rebound from close after Sunday’s sparkling strike was blocked by Dempo keeper Agnelo Gomes.
Thrilled by the goal, Salgaocar dominated the rest of the session as the Vasco based club continuously penetrated rivals defence but Dempo’s last line led by Mathew Gonsalves along with Nickson, Shallum Pires and Naveen Mendes cleared every danger. 
In few of these, Sunday had the best chance to equalise in the 82nd minute when he just had to beat the keeper from point-blank range but Mathew rescued his side with a timely clearance while in the last minutes, Nickson denied substitute Agnelo Colaco’s goal-bound attempt to earn all three points from the reverse encounter. 

  • | 07 Feb, 2018, 05:17AM

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