MAPUSA: Panjim Footballers registered a 2-0 win over Guardian Angel Sports Club in the Goa Professional League match, organised by Goa Football Association, played at Duler Stadium, on Sunday.
Panjim coach Savio Vaz made couple of changes to his side which lost to Goan FC in the last match as defender Clive Miranda and midfielder Pisco Moura found their names in the playing XI, whereas Angels’ gaffer Riston Rodrigues chose to continue with the winning combination which earned him full points against Calangute Association in the last round match.
The match started with possession football from both the side, however, Angels were the dominant side in the first half with better ball possession and attacking index.
The Nigerian striker Yakubu Mohammed should have given the lead to the Curchorem side in the 34th minutes when he was nicely set up by Clifton Dias with a brilliant lob ball but the Nigerian striker shot wide from close.
The second session started with an attacking play for Panjim side where they continuously penetrated the opponent’s defence and finally opened their tally in the 50th minute when Prisco’s excellent through pass was collected by Velton D’Souza in the box and made no mistake to finish the ball in the back on the nylons to make it 1-0 for Panjim.
Angels coach Vaz brought in another foreign strike force Abel Hammond and midfielder Rayman Fernandes replacing Louie and Aniston Fernandes respectively but they could not manage to make any difference to the score sheet.
At the other end, Panjim should have doubled their lead when Clifton Fernandes’ smart short pass brought Akeraj Martin with just keeper to beat but the striker over ambitious shot went over the crossbar.
However, four minutes later, Panjim midfielder Mahesh Kumar doubled Panjim’s lead when he shot past Angels’ keeper Ram Sroop after getting hold of a through pass from Clifton, to make it 2-0 for the Capital City side.
Despite having two foreigners on the pitch, Angels failed to make any impression in the match, whereas, Panjim defence lead by Clive and Schubert D’Costa along with Kunal Kundaikar and Prasil Kankonkar did the best job to restrict Nigerian Yakubu and Abel from scoring.
With this win, Panjim moved up to the 7th position with 9 points from the same number of matches, while, Angels failed to make strong their 3rd position as they have 14 points from 10 matches.
