Team Herald
MAPUSA: Sporting Clube de Goa hammered Corps of Signals 7-0 in the tenth round match of the GFA’s Professional League, played at Duler Stadium, here on Friday.
By vitue of this win, Sporting go to the top of the league table with 21 points with nine matches while Corps of Signals have seven points from ten matches
Sporting did not waste any time and when the match was just five minutes old they netted their first goal of the match. Marcus Mascarenhas seeing the keeper off his line lobbed the ball towards the empty Signals goal which was guided in by Nigerian Philip Odogwu, 1-0.
The Signals colts put up a strong appeal for an offside which was refuted by the assistant referee Shivram Thanekar and referee Deepraj Sangelkar.
The army men could have restored parity when L. Solomon Khongsai curled his corner towards Lairellakpam Singh whose strike missed the target by a whisker.
In the 24th minute Sporting doubled their lead when George smartly played Assumption through on the flank and the latter played a cross to Philip, who leapt high to nod in, 2-0. The Flaming Oranje’s third goal came from the boots of George D’Souza whose long range free-kick crashed into the Signals net, 3-0.
Changing over Sporting continued from where they had left and got back into the scoring act with Philip Odogwu completing his hat-trick through a firm header, 4-0.
Couple of minutes into the match Stendly Fernandes made it 5-0 for Sporting when his free-kick had no answer from the rival keeper. Harshad Naik who came off the bench was instrumental in getting in the sixth goal when he set up George Dsouza whose rasping shot left the keeper rooted to his spot, 6-0.
Signals were guilty of squandering two scoring opportunities when first Nim Bhutia failed to beat the keeper in a one to one situation and then Lairellakpam Singh’s shot was pushed away by the Sporting keeper.
The final goal of the match came from skipper Marcus who gave finishing touches to Harshad Naik’s pass, 7-0.
Harshad Naik, who had a good time on the field with two assist almost had a chance to score but his effort went straight to the keeper.
