Green Brigade consolidate mid-table position with 4-0 rout of curchorem-based side at duler stadium
the goan I network
DULER
Salgaocar Football Club trounced Guardian Angel Sports Club by a 4-0 margin in the Goa Professional League, organised by GFA, in a match played at Duler stadium, here on Friday.
In the first leg meeting between the two sides, the Green Brigade had drubbed Angel colts 4-1 at Navelim grounds. After this win, Salgaocar have 38 points from 17 matches to be fourth in the league standings, while Guardian Angel stay in eighth spot with 21 points from 21 matches. The highlight of the match was a brace each by Ronaldo Oliveira and Devendra Murgaonkar.
Guardian Angel, after their poor performance against Calangute Association, where they had lost by a 7-2 margin, managed to restrict their opponents from scoring in the first half an hour. The Green Brigade that had won their last league match against Vasco by a 4-1 margin, started brightly and came up with a series of attacks on the rival citadel but striker Devendra failed to get past the Angel defence. In the very 2nd minute, Devendra collected a through pass from Ronaldo and as he was about to pull the trigger, Angel keeper Jeet Gupta left his charge to deny the aggressor in a one on one situation.
As the match progressed, two more strikes by Salgaocar’s Devendra at the goal were foiled. First, his attempt was blocked by keeper Jeet in the 5th minute and in the 10th minute, defender Sarabjit Ram blocked Devendra’s strike in a goalmouth melee.
At the other end, Guardian Angel did come up with some finely built moves but striker Clinton Niasso and Alvito Miranda were given very little space by the Green Brigade defenders to have a crack at the goal. Finally in the 34th minute, Salgaocar’s Stephen Satarkar initiated a fine move and sent an intelligent through pass into the box to Ronaldo, who after covering some steps, sent a low cross at the far end to an overlapping Devendra, who coolly tapped the ball into an unguarded goal, 1-0.
The best chance for Guardian Angel came in the 38th minute where a pinpoint cross by James Fernandes was smartly headed at the goal by Clinton Niasso, which was brilliantly parried for a corner by Salgaocar keeper Nora Fernandes. In the 45th minute, Ronaldo’s 25-yard blistering shot was pushed for a corner by keeper Jeet. From the resultant corner taken by Selwyn, the ball curled inside the Angel goal which hit Ronaldo and came back into play, which was surprisingly overlooked by linesman Kashinath Kamat for the goal, a decision that was strongly appealed by the Salgaocar players and officials.
On resumption of play, Green Brigade carried on their onslaught and pumped in three goals in a span of ten minutes. In the 49th and 53rd minutes, Ronaldo slammed the ball into the goal after Selwyn and Stephen had done the spadework respectively, 3-0. Devendra netted his brace in the 58th minute as he dribbled past a host of rival defenders and the advancing keeper Jeet placed the ball into the goal, 4-0.
Another glorious chance went begging for Angel in the 67th minute, where a strong header by Alvito Miranda off a corner brushed keeper Nora’s gloves and hit the goalpost and the ball was cleared by Stephen Alvares for a corner. Defender Stephen came to his team’s rescue as made a goal-line clearance to deny Alvito from scoring while Aslon Oliveira blasted the ball over the crossbar off the rebound.
Two close-range strikes by Guardian Angel in the 78th and 93rd minutes were thwarted by the Salgaocar keeper Nora. First, he superbly tipped the ball over the post to deny Joaquim Carvalho before stopping another header, from Clinton Niasso.
