MAPUSA: Dempo Sports Club registered a hard-fought 2-1 win over local favourites Calangute Association in the Goa Professional League match, organized by Goa Football Association, played at Duler Stadium, on Saturday.
Calangute coach Alex Alvares made two changes to his side after their first setback of the GPL season against Sporting Clube de Goa in the last match.
Myron Fernandes and Omkar Satelkar were in the starting line for the Beachside.
On the other hand, Dempo Sports Club had also suffered a defeat in the last match at the hands of FC Bardez but their coach Samir Naik made no changes to the side.
The first half witnessed an absence of attacking flair as the game was restricted to the midfield play. However, both the sides created a chance each where first Calangute’s Bersal Viegas saw his weak shot being collected comfortably by the Dempo Sports Club keeper Agnelo Gomes.
A few minute later, Dempo’s Beevan gave a perfect through pass to Kapil Hoble in the box but the winger shot the ball wide as both the teams returned to the dressing room goalless.
On changing sides, Calangute took the lead as Omkar blasted the ball into the net from inside after receiving a short pass from Joston Pereira.The move was initiated by Domnic Fernandes with a fine long ball to Joston in the box.
However, Dempo Sports Club found the equaliser within next five minutes when Beevan made no mistake to tap the ball home after his brilliant first touch to Nickson Castanha’s off-target shot converted into an assist for him.
Motivated by the equaliser, Dempo Sports Club once again came close to scoring when Beevan made a quick pass to Yogesh Kadam on the wing, who had covered some ground before curling it to Latesh Mandrekar in the box but the striker shot the ball just over the crossbar.
At the other end, Omkar came up with two back-to-back chances where he dribbled past Shallum on both the occasion but first Dempo keeper punched his shot to safety from close, while a few minutes later, the striker shot the ball wide from 10-yards.
A few minutes later, Dempo Sports Club saw another effort go into vain when Beevan’s acrobatic header went wide off substitute Suraj’s curling cross, with every opponent beaten.
In the 81st minute, Suraj’s free-kick from the 20-yards made the difference in the match as his shot entered the top corner making it 2-1 forthe Golden Eagles.
The last few minutes saw Calangute come up with few attacks but the excellent defending and superbguarding of the post from Agnelo helped the Golden Eagles to climb the top of the table with 15 points after seven matches, while Calangute Association have 8 points from the same number of matches.
