MAPUSA: Salgaocar Football Club continued their fine form as they registered an easy 3-1 win over Calangute Association in the Goa Professional League match, organised by Goa Football Association, played at Duler Stadium, here on Saturday.
With this victory, Salgaocar climbed to 5th position with 17 points from 12 matches, while Calangute remained on 4th position with 18 points from 13 outings.
Samuel Costa was the only change for Salgaocar who had registered a massive 7-0 win over FC Bardez in the previous round, while keeper Jason D’Mello, Omkar Satelkar and Sanjay Vengurlekar were back in the Calangute starting XI.
Both the teams started the match on an attacking note as the first 15 minutes witnessed an end-to-end play but none of the team came close to scoring.
However, in the 20th minute, Salgaocar midfielder Mackroy Peixote tried his luck from the edge of the box but his sparkling strike was pushed away to safety by Calangute keeper Jason.
Whereas, Calangute also had a chance to take the lead when Joston Pereira made a through pass to Domnic Fernandes in the box but the midfielder failed to keep his shot on target.
At the other end, Mackroy Peixote put Salgaocar ahead in the 30th minute with a superb shot from just inside the box which gave the keeper no chance to move from his side, making it 1-0 for the Green Brigade. Nigerian striker Joel Sunday was the architect of the goal with a superb cut-back pass in the box.
Five minutes later, Sunday himself had an opportunity to inflate their lead as the Nigerian striker was just left with the keeper to beat after receiving a through pass from U-20 striker Devendra but Calangute keeper Jason came with a brave save to clear the danger.
However, in the 36th minute, Devendra made no mistake from close to tap the ball home off Gilbert Oliveira’s diagonal pass to make it 2-0 for Salgaocar. Sunday was once again involved in the goal as he has started the move with lay off pass to Gilbert.
Devendra was once again in action when he made brilliant footwork to dribble past Calangute Nigerian defender Kouame Joseph and smartly shot past keeper Jason from inside the box for Salgaocar’s third goal in the 39th minute.
On crossing over, Salgaocar almost inflated their lead in the 69th minute when substitute Clencio Pinto danced past Calangute keeper Jason and sent the ball towards the empty goal but Calangute defender Mayur Shelar cleared the ball off the goal-line to deny the striker.
A few minutes later, Salgaocar was once again unlucky not to score, as this time Sunday saw his powerful strike get denied by the woodwork.
With just two minutes left for the final whistle, Calangute were reduced to ten-men when their midfielder Joston was booked for the second time within a gap of four minutes after a reckless tackle on Clencio and was sent off.
Calangute reduced the margin when Salgaocar keeper S. Rajini Kumar was brought down by Calangute defender Kouame in the box to give away the penalty kick where Domnic stepped up ahead and made no mistake to beat Salgaocar keeper from the spot.
