Sporting Clube stun Bagan

 Bagan…1 Sporting…2
KOLKATA, MARCH 20
Bottom-placed Sporting Clube de Goa stunned Mohun Bagan 1-2 to deal a big blow to the title aspirations of the Kolkata side in the I-League here on Saturday.
Sporting Clube thus registered their first win of the season after 17 matches, defeating last season’s runners-up side at Yuba Bharati Krirangan (YBK) here.
Capitalising on the insipid show by Mohun Bagan, the Goan outfit fought back from one-goal deficit to take full points from the match.
Mohun Bagan drew first blood through Jose Ramirez Barreto in the 12th minute, but Sporting Clube scored the equaliser through Adil Khan (32nd) before Elijah Junior banged in the winner in the 67th minute.
Winless from 16 matches, Sporting, coached by Vishwas Gaonkar, began the proceedings on backfoot with Mohun Bagan attacking from the start.
Barreto looked to attack right from the start but the Goan defence stood firm. Minutes later, Bagan got a free kick but Marcos Pereira shot it away.
The persistent Barreto, however, found the goal minutes later when the Brazilian capitalised on a Snehashish Chakraborty cross from the left to head it home.
The day did not belong to Bagan’s Nigerian recruit Edeh Chidi who missed chances aplenty with the best one coming minutes before the final whistle when an alert Sporting custodian Felix D’Souza saved the match for the Goans.
In one of his first misses, Chidi hit the bar in the 18th minute. Ten minutes later, the Nigerian could not capitalise on a Barreto pass.
Sporting just needed an opportunity and it came in the 32nd minute during a goalmouth melee as Khan’s right footer found the goal to bring the equaliser as both sides went into the half-time on 1-1.
After the changeover, coach Satyajit Chatterjee replaced Ishfaq Ahmed with James Singh, but it did not help much. In the 49th minute, James initiated a move and set it up for Barreto, who failed to find his effective header this time.
Missed chances became the order of the day for Mohun Bagan as Sporting got the match-winner through a well calculated move by Elijah Junior and Nathaniel Amos in the 67th minute.
Junior headed the ball home from an Amos cross to help Sporting surge ahead Mohun Bagan with more than 20 minutes to spare.
Mohun Bagan tried their best, but the day clearly did not belong to them. For new coach Chatterjee, who replaced Moroccan Karim Bencherifa, it was a reality check having started his stint with a 5-1 hammering of Chirag United SC.