Team Herald
DULER: Goa Police Sports Club registered a comfortable 3-0 win over Cuncolim Union Sports Club in the Geno First Division League organised by Goa Football Association, and played at Duler Stadium, Mapusa, on Thursday.
Tushar Dessai, Abdul Khan and Shaikh Mouzzan Saliya scored a goal each for Goa Police.
Goa Police has 15 points to their tally from 6 matches after today’s win, while Cuncolim has 16 points from 8 matches.
The cops took the lead in the early stage of the match when their midfielder Abdul cut past defenders and squared it to well-positioned Tushar who made an easy tap to put Goa Police into the lead.
At the other end, Cuncolim Union had three open chances but Imamsab Guledgudde missed twice from close before Shubham Malvankar also missed the sitter. Another scoring chance for Cuncolim went in the vain in the 20th minute when Necil Pinto failed to beat the onrushing Goa Police keeper Niklesh Naik in one on one situation.
Goa Police had a chance to inflate their lead in the 37th minutes when Sachin Chopdekar was left with just keeper to beat but the striker shot wide.
Cuncolim came out strongly in the second session and marched many times on the rivals but the rival keeper Niklesh made some superb saves to keep his side safe.
In few of these, Necil’s goal bound shot was nicely collected by the keeper, while a few minutes later, he came with another great save to deny Somnath Patil from top of the box.
Whereas, Goa Police defence led by Punaji Kalangutkar, Swanand Naik, Balchandra Vernekar and Tushar Dessai stood tall to clear every danger as Cuncolim midfielders John Khati and Naved Almeida’s most of the moves were cut shot before they made it into the danger box.
With five minutes left to the regular time, Police doubled their tally when a powerful shot from Abdul deflected off Cuncolim defender Raju Padashi before finding its way into the goal to make it 2-0 for Goa Police.
Cuncolim added another to their account in the injury time when Mouzzan nicely collected a long ball from Abdul and easily cut past advancing Cuncolim custodian Oswin Rodrigues before finishing it in the empty goal, thus cementing their victory.
Abdul who played an influential role in Goa Police’s victory over the South Goan club received the Geno man-of-the-match award from the hands of GFA executive member Angelo Albuquerque.
In another match, Clube Sao Minguel de Taleigao and Dempo SC (jrs) played out a 1-1 draw, at Artificial Turf, Fatorda.
Both the goals were scored in the first half of the game itself.
Kaeston Estebeiro opened the scoring for the Taleigao side at the half hour mark but the Dempo side came out with equaliser in the first additional time through Brivon Dias.
The second half failed to find any positive result as the first half goals resulted inn both teams sharing out points.
