It was Benny XI who held control of the proceedings in the first session of play with their midfielders doing a fine job of supplying the required ammunitions upfront time and again, however their strikers failed to convert.
Jesroy Fernandes came close in the 10th and 12th minutes to put Benny XI into the lead but his efforts missed the mark narrowly.
A controversial judgement by the referee’s assistant almost cost Benny XI a berth in the semi-finals as he erroneously pulled up Chandan Gawas for off-side when he was on the verge of taking a crack at the rival goal.
However, Benny XI refused to back down and exerted further pressure only to see Dario Rodrigues head inched past the Sanquelim goal and then Sanquelim defender Anup Govekar came with a goal line clearance to prevent Jesroy’s shot from entering the nets.
Sanquelim too came up with moves but Nehal Gaonkar on getting hold of the ball inside the danger zone blasted the ball wide and then Benny keeper Denis D’Souza came with a few stretched diving saves to punch away Pravin Kanelkar power-packed shot.
On resumption of play, Sanquelim got to take a first crack at the rival goal when Nehal Gaonkar on being set up by Pravin, unleashed a blistering shot from 35-yards which was acrobatically kept away by keeper Denis.
Jesroy din’t seem to have look on his side as first his effort from handshaking distance missed the target narrowly, then his powerful strike bounced off the Sanquelim side post and finally in the dying moments of the match his effort from close range was thwarted by Sanquelim keeper Siddhart Gad.
As both the teams were unable to break the deadlock in regulation time the tie breaker was applied where Dario Rodrigues, Gautam Kankonkar, Shakil Gadekar, Gawtan Kurtikar and Prasil Kankonkar scored for Benny while Laxman, Pravin, Rudresh, Kasim were on target for FC Sanquelim.
