TEAM HERALD
OLD GOA: Vaddy Sports Club, Merces were lucky to beat St Sebastian Sports Club, Santa Cruz by a narrow 1-0 margin despite the Santa Cruz side playing with 10-men for almost the entire match, in an Ilhas Zone Second Division encounter at Dr Remigio Pinto grounds, Taleigao.
St Sebastian goalkeeper Samir Samji also played a stellar role to deny Vaddy from running riot. The bar also came to the rescue of St Sebastian on three occasions apart from wayward shooting from the Vaddy strikers.
The lone goal for Vaddy was scored when the Merces side had only eight players on the field. When two other players joined later, ten-men St Sebastian defended bravely to thwart the Merces side from adding to the scoreline.
Vaddy started strongly with Ramesh Priolkar taking advantage of 8-men St Sebastian and finding the back of the nets in the very 2nd minute.
Later, Milton Negredo fumbled in front of the goal when he had only the goalkeeper to beat. Rohan Pednekar then saw his header hit the vertical bar to deny Vaddy, while a little later Rohan blasted over from close range.
Crossing over, the game of missed chances continued with the Vaddy strikers a bundle of nerves in front of the goal. Vaddy then brought in Aston Mendes in place of Milton Negredo and Aston made an immediate impact by finding the back of the net but his goal was disallowed as the linesman flagged him off-side.
Aston was then unlucky not to have doubled the lead for his side as his fierce shot hit the horizontal and rebounded into play. Later, Rohan too saw his shot hit the horizontal and rebound into play as goals proved elusive for the Vaddy side.
Then again, St Sebastian custodian Samir effected a fine save off Ramesh to keep the scoreline at 1-0.
At the fag end of the match, St Sebastian’s Bloyton Faria was sent off for earning a second yellow which reduced his side to 9-men, but it did not have any impact as there were no goals added further.
Clifford da Costa, Krishanath Shirodkar and Saish Kavlekar of Vaddy SC while Joao Lopes and McDavid Dias of St Sebastian SC also earned yellow cards for rough play.
With this loss, St Sebastian have lost all their matches played thus far and stand relegated.
