VASCO: Goa scored a hard fought 1-0 victory over Madhya Pradesh in the 70th National Football Championship for the Santosh Trophy, at Tilak Maidan, Vasco, on Monday. Goa started off on a good note with Francis Fernandes, Beevan D’Mello and Agnelo Colaco working hard in the midfield.
The all-important goal was scored through the boots of striker Agnelo with a free-kick from outside the box in the eighth minute. Madhya Pradesh having conceded an early goal went into a very defensive setup and frustrated the Goan strikers throughout the remainder of the match.
Madhya Pradesh played with a well coordinated unit in the defence and kept a tight watch for any attempts by Goan midfielders and strikers to make any serious attempts at goal.
Against the run of play, Beevan and Francis came close to increasing the goal margin three separate occasions but were denied by goalkeeping of Madhya Pradesh and captain Ajay Kujur.
The defence of Madhya Pradesh led by Aakash Ahir, Naveen Tomar and Robinson Anthony were outstanding while midfielders Yash Lal, Karan Pal and Abhilash Pale marshalled the half line.
Goan midfielders Richard Costa, Velito D’Cruz and Nickson Castanha could not get room to make inroads and make their trademark dangerous passes to their strikers into the Madhya Pradesh goal area.
The Goa Head Coach, Alfred Fernandes in an attempt to infuse some breakthrough and get more goals to the tally introduced striker Milagres Gonsalves in place of Nickson Castanha while Semson Fernandes replaced Agnelo Colaco and Valerio Rodrigues came in place of Velito D’Cruz.
The infusion of three fresh players still could not get Goa another goal and Madhya Pradesh played with a compact defence.
Goa next take on Maharashtra on February 18 to decide the West Zone winners. Maharashtra has convincingly beaten Madhya Pradesh 8-0 in their earlier encounter and had got the better of Gujarat 6-2.
