PANAJI
Sporting Clube de Goa beat Dempo SC in the U-16 North Zone play-off at Duler Stadium to set up the title clash with Salgaocar FC. A second half goal from Stendly Fernandes secured the victory for the Flaming Oranje.
The match drowned into controversy early in the first half as Dempo received two red cards in the space of three minutes. In the 14th minute Nikhil Guraung surprisingly received a yellow card for time wasting and before the play could resume referee Ristesh Parsekar gave him his marching orders by showing him his second yellow card, presumably for use of foul language.
In the 17th minute Arron Alvares of Dempo received a direct red for reasons unknown. After this incident the Dempo side were clearly unhappy which resulted in a 22-minute delay. Once the game resumed everyone witnessed another unusual incident. The match referee Parsekar was changed and his counterpart from the far end Valintan Fernandes took over as they both exchanged roles.
After the match resumed Sporting used the two-man advantage and dominated the match. The Dempo lads resorted to a defensive game with Baggio Fernandes operating as the lone striker. Sporting’s Stendly and Aman Govekar combined well to create some good chances but the Dempo custodian was up to the task. The first half ended in a stalemate with either side failing to get on the scoresheet.
Crossing over, Sporting came all guns blazing and launched a wave of attacks. At about the hour mark, Stendly sent in a rasping shot from about 25 yards, beating everyone, into the back of the net. Dempo tried their best to come back with Baggio giving the Sporting custodian Akshat some nervous moments. Towards the end Sporting came close to scoring on a handful of occasions but couldn’t capitalise.
Post match the Dempo Coach Remos Gomes said, “I do not want to make any specific comments, certain events were surprising and everyone knows what exactly happened... We need to come up with a better system to avoid situations like this. No one exactly knows what happened; it's one's word against other's. May be use of technology can resolve this.”
