DULER: Football Club de Bardez stunned their rivals Dempo Sports Club by a solitary goal win in the GFA’s Goa Pro League, at Duler Stadium, Mapusa, on Sunday.
FC Bardez now join Dempo SC who stand second on the table with 7 points from four matches.
Despite Dempo’s fine performance throughout the match, it was Kritikesh Gadekar’s 85th minute goal that gave the Bardez outfit full points.
FC Bardez seemed a pale shadow of their usual attacking side and were kept on the back foot for major duration of the first session of the match.
The Dempo outfit came with several attacks, with Joaquim Abranches and Adil Khan at the helm of affairs. However they failed to score on numerous occasions.
In a span of two minutes Adil Khan came twice teasingly close to putting Dempo SC ahead however first his header off Mohamammed Ali’s corner was blocked by the keeper and in the next minute his header sailed inches over the FC Bardez horizontal bar.
In the 20th minute of play Adil sent a lovely through pass to Joaquim Abranches who was a wee bit late to connect the ball home.
Minutes later, Joaquim charged into the FC Bardez danger zone and unleashed a powerful low grounder which hit the side post and rebounded back into play.
On resumption, Adil Khan – with his powerful play continued to wreck havoc in the Bardez defense where in the 63rd minute of play his powerful shot off Germanpreet Singh corner banged the post while Mohammed Ali’s header from the rebound was collected by the keeper.
In the 64th minute of play, FC Bardez coach Armando Colaco introduced their first foreign signing- Koko Sakibo in place of Latesh Mandrekar- to re-energize their attack, however the Golden Eagles defenders Shallum Pires and Mohammed Ali did a good job to restrict his movements.
Minutes into the match, Beevan D’Mello who came off the bench in place of Hayden Fernandes, on getting hold of the ball flashed it across the goal area however Mario Mascarenhas failed to tap home from close range.
FC Bardez created their first real chance at scoring in the 82nd minute of play when Koko ran into the Dempo danger zone with defenders in hot pursuit only to see his strike being blocked by the keeper where the ball then travelled to substitute Kritikesh Gadekar who blasted the ball over.
In the 85th minute of play FC Bardez turned around the fate of the match in their favour when Alesh Sawant sent a perfect ball to unmarked Kritikesh Gadekar right inside the 18-yard box, who made a quick turn and fired the ball past the diving keeper, 1-0.
In another match, SCC Cavelossim defeated Corps of Signals 3-1, at 3MTR ground, Navelim, on Sunday.
Pawan Thakur opened the account for Corps of Signals in the 25th minute while Suraj Hankonkar levelled terms for SCC Cavelossim in the 53rd minute.
Melvin Fernasndes scored his brace for SCC Cavelossim in the 56th and 61st minutes to take the tally to 3-1.
