VASCO: Mormugao United Sports Club ousted holders Sai Avatar Sports Club by 2-0 to enter the quarter finals of the 44th Bandodkar Memorial football tournament organised by Baina Sports Club and played at MPT ground, Vasco on Saturday.
The Mormugao lads led by 1-0 at break; Sai Avatar started in the right earnest and brought scare in the Mormugao area in the 13th, 15th and 21st minute with their forwards Pawan Dhargalkar, Nilesh Shirodkar and Samuel D’Souza missing sitters.
At the fag end of the first half, Mormugao went in the lead as Syrus Moura scored off a pass from Sushant Borkar in the 32nd minute making it 1-0.
After change of ends, Sai Avatar started with renewed ideas, forced the Mormugao defence to fall back. In the 48th minute, Sushant Borkar of Mormugao pass to Syrus saw the latter’s try being beautifully saved by Sai goalkeeper Somu Korgaonkar.
Four minutes later the cross bar came to the rescue of Sai Avatar as a powerful shot by Romil Azavedo got deflected back into play which was cleared in the nick of time by Sai defender Remi Dias.
In the counter attack, Samuel D’Souza’s solo effort at the Mormugao goal was stopped by Seby Fernandes before any damage could be done. Goaded by this attempt, Sai lads kept on attacking and raiding the Mormugao area but could not convert their tries into goals.
In the dying minutes, substitute Beevan Fernandes took advantage of advancing Sai keeper Somu Korgaonkar and accepting a cross pass from Sushant, the former scored in the open goal making it 2-0.
Pawan Dhargalkar of Sai Avatar was awarded as the man-of-the-match.
