Team Herald
sports@herald-goa.com
CANDOLIM: Viva North Veterans were lucky to hold Sports Authority of India (SAI) Veterans 1-1 in the inaugural match of the 1st all-Goa Sports Authority of India Veterans Football tournament organised by the Sports Authority of India ( SAI), played at the Dr. Gustavo Monteiro Stadium, on Monday.
Both teams started cautiously with SAI dominating the midfield where the SAI captain Caetano Pinho, Manuel Po and Uday Naik excelled feeding their forwards Frankie Mascarenhas and Rosario Carvalho who posed problems for the Viva North defence. Viva North Veterans took the lead when Shankar Naik scored off a penalty which was conceded by Niazi Shaikh in the SAI defence.
Chico Fernandes, Premanand Nandodkar, and Claudio Pacheco played well for Viva North Defence.
Xavier Pereira the goalkeeper Viva North was declared the Man-of-the-Match for saving the day for them where he saved twice beautiful headers by Nelson Landez to deny goals for SAI. At half time the score was 1-0 in favour of Viva North.
In the second half, SAI came out with renewed vigour and attacked the Viva North defence where again keeper Xavier came to his team’s rescue by saving a Frankie Mascarenhas’ connect of a Rosario Carvalho cross. Finally Rosario Carvalho scored from a wall pass by Krishna Shirodkar to make it 1-1.
At the other end, Uday Naik almost scored but again his powerful attempt was well saved by Xavier Pereira.
