Team Herald
MAPUSA: Calangute Association Sports Club showed great resilience to hold Sporting Clube de Goa to a goalless draw in the fifth-round match of GFA’s Professional league, at Duler stadium, here, on Monday.
Both teams having drawn their fourth-round matches needed a win to improve their position in the league table.
After Monday’s match, Calangute have 9 points from five matches while Sporting has 8 points from four matches.
Skipper Marcus Mascarenhas was back in the line-up and leading the attack for Sporting and nearly opened the scoring in the 10th minute when his clever flick towards the goal rebounded off the post.
Minutes later, Marcus’ well struck low shot was well stopped by keeper Sanji Bugde who had a busy outing in the goal for Calangute.
Sporting kept on creating openings and in the next minute a dangerous cross flashed across the goal by George D’Souza was timely cleared for a corner by Calangute’s Krishnanath Shirodkar before Nigerian Philip Odogwu could slam it into the net.
Calangute who were stifled into their own half by the constant pressure from Sporting had two decent attempts of taking the lead but U-20 Siddhant Shirodkar squandered an open sitter and then Gourav Kankonkar’s fierce shot was acrobatically tipped out for a corner by keeper Melroy.
From the resultant corner-kick, Sporting keeper Melroy slipped the ball out from his grasp which came to Denson whose first time shot struck the defender and went for a corner.
Calangute were once again unlucky in the 38th minute when this time Alesh Sawant power-packed shot hit the defender and went out for a corner after being put through by Denson with an intelligent pass.
Changing ends, the ball was mostly confined to the midfield as both teams failed to penetrate the well-organized defence.
It was in the 65th minute when Sporting Marcus Mascarenhas after getting hold off a pass from Giresh Naik unleashed a ferocious shot which unluckily hit defender Joaquim Carvalho and went out for a corner.
Sporting should have broken the deadlock in the 75th minute but were denied by a double save from Calangute custodian by Sanji Bugde who not only stopped the spot kick from Marcus but also got up quickly to keep out his rebound shot after the penalty kick was awarded by referee Sunil Nanodkar when Philip’s header from a cross delivered by George strike hit the Calangute defender Minesh Kunkolkar’s hand.
In the closing minutes, Sporting keeper Melroy brought up a smart save to keep out Chandan Govenkar’s shot from entering the goal.
