MAPUSA: Sesa Football Academy Juniors got the better of rivals Sporting Club de Goa 2-0 margin to lift the GFA’s Friendship Cup 2017, played at Duler Stadium, Mapusa, on Sunday.
Buoyed by the support of their huge number of fans gathered, Sesa shot into the lead in the 4th minute of play when Omkar Shetgaonkar sent a perfect pass to Benhohson Meiti who covered a few yards before beating the Sporting keeper with a firm placement, 1-0.
A minute later, Sesa outfit suffered a setback as their keeper, Nonpoknganba Singh injured himself in the process on thwarting Rohit Tatod from scoring and had to leave the field. However substitute keeper Hansell Coelho did a fine job under the horizontal bar for Sesa.
The Young Oranje had a lovely opportunity to restore parity in the 23rd minute of play when the referee found Zodan Fernandes guilty of bringing down Sporting’s Rohit Tatod inside the 18-yard box. However skipper Aman Govekar who stepped forward to take the kick shot wide to the dismay of his teammates and supporters.
While Sporting failed to score it was Sesa who once again got into the act of scoring when in the 29th minute Omkar Shetgaonkar’s powerful shot was blocked by the Sporting defender only to see the ball roll towards Rizbon Fernandes who fired the ball home, 2-0.
Couple of minutes into the match Sporting keeper failed to judge the flight of Omkar’s free-kick where Rizbon pounced on the opportunity only to see his brilliantly executed reverse kick miss the target by a whisker.
In the 34th minute of play Sporting keeper Saiesh came with a diving save to deny Benjohnson from scoring on being set up by Yuvaraj Gaonkar.
In the injury time of the first session Aman Govenkar got the better of the Sesa defence and charged ahead only to be denied by the keeper in a one to one situation.
On resumption of play, both sides had equal number of scoring opportunities and had they been converted, the scoreline would have read much differently.
Rizbon Fernandes was guilty of squandering open goal scoring opportunities, first when he failed to direct Benjohson’s curling cross into the goal and in the next minute having only the Sporting keeper at his mercy he blasted the ball wide.
At the other end Richard Cardoz charged into the Sesa territory and set up Aman Govekar who powerful shot was pushed away by the Sesa keeper. Minutes later Richard himself made his way inside the Sesa camp but was denied by Sesa keeper Hansell.
In the 73rd minute, Sesa almost scored their third goal of the match but Benjohson strike kissed the side post before going out of play.
Sesa Football Academy received the winners trophy, Sporting Clube de Goa got the runners-up Trophy while Carnic XI claimed the third place trophy.
