TEAM HERALD
sports@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: In a very physical match that resulted in referee Franky Fernandes having to constantly reach for his whistle and the cards, Sesa Football Academy managed to get the better of Sporting Clube de Goa by a solitary goal, to move top of the table, in the AIFF’s U-19 I-league tournament (Goa Zone) at Don Bosco ground, Panjim on Friday.
The match saw attacking football produced by both sides but was constantly interrupted due to the physicality of the teams which resulted in the referee having to produce seven yellow cards.
In the first half both sides came close to breaking the deadlock. Papai Biswas dribbled through three players for Sporting but his shot went marginally wide of the post.
At the other end, Sesa had a couple of good shots which were plucked safely from the air by Sporting custodian Allison Fernandes.
The match was goalless at half time.
Jaison Vaz scored the winner as Sesa registered a 1-0 victory over Sporting. Sesa managed to cut out a dangerous Sporting Goa corner with a long ball clearance.
The ball fell to Sesa’s Glan Martins who lobbed the ball forward to Jaison who kept his cool to score past a hapless Allison in the 63rd minute.
The young Flaming Oranje went all out for the equalizer, with Spanish coach Javier Cabrera making three substitutions. Suraj Hadkonkar, took the place of Olan Chandran, while Jesus Estrocio, replaced Lester Martins and Aniket Subhash Mandrekar was brought into the match for Chatur Ganesh Naik.
Sesa Goa coach, Ajay Acharya also effected his quota of replacements with Josley A Dias replacing Olvin Cardozo, Faizal Bepari came in for goal-scorer Jaison Vaz, while Saish Goltekar came in for Ganesh Thakur.
Sporting Clube pressed for the equalizer but fell short due to some disciplined defending from Sesa. It was evident that Sporting Clube missed their live wire striker Mauvin Borges who traveled with the senior Sporting team to play their I-League encounter against Pune FC on Sunday at Pune.
An excited Sesa coach Ajay Acharya, was all praise for his boys. “They played very well in every department. The boys deserve all the credit for this victory specially this being an away match. I am sure they will continue to keep the tempo going,” Ajay said.
Sporting coach Javier told Herald that Sporting played top level football, specially the defence. “The boy’s attitude was good. Our rivals played long balls. But we lapsed on the counter-attack of our rival. This is our first outing. We need to work on short ball passes, possession and our combinations. We lacked in speedy passing but I am confident of the boys delivering the goods,” disclosed Javier.
