The Goan Network
Margao
Goa's dream run continued when they hammered hapless Gujarat 10-0 in the Sub Junior National Football Championship (West Zone) played at Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, Wednesday.
Goa started off the match on a good note and put tremendous pressure on the Gujarat defence. Goa came close to scoring but Gujarat goalkeeper stood like a rock and pulled off 4 brilliant saves to deny Goa the opening goal. In the 30th minute, Stewart D’Mello unleashed a powerful shot from outside the box which hit the horizontal bar.
Goa enjoyed better ball possession and controlled the tempo of the match from the opening whistle but did not manage to find a breakthrough in the first half of play. The halftime score read 0-0. The 2nd half was when the Goa team began finding their goal scoring groove and getting into killer mode completely shell shocking Gujarat.
The deadlock was broken in the 47th minute when forward Movin Gauncar made an inch-perfect cross to Stewart D’Mello who made no mistake in front of the goal to find the back of the net. The opening goal motivated the entire Goan squad and they started to make some good inroads deep into the Gujarat goal area. In the 63rd min, Stewart D’Mello made a nice through ball pass to Kenneth Da Costa who fired the ball into the goal to put Goa up 2-0. Hardly had Gujarat recovered from conceding two goals that in the 65th min Stewart D’Mello unleased a rasping volley that crashed into the net.
In the next 3 minutes, Stewart D’Mello scored his hat-trick by beating the goalkeeper completely off a pass from Harsh Patre in the 68th minute of play. In a repeat scenario, another Harsh Patre pass found Stewart D’Mello who made a deft placement for a nice goal to put Goa up 5-0 in the 72nd minute. Gujarat team at this moment seemed completely out of sync and the pressure was clearly visible on the players who let down their guard and started losing focus on the field.
In the 75th minute, Goan medio Aman Bhore made a nice pass upfront to Stewart D’Mello who let a low drive shot that again found the back of the net. Rahul Choudhari made it 7-0 for Goa by scoring a fine goal off a pass from Aman Bhore. Goa at this moment were in complete control of the match and it wasn’t long before Movin Gauncar intercepted a pass and made it 8-0 for Goa in the 85th minute.
Stewart D’Mello was in his own zone and was hungry for more goals and the hard working striker got his reward with a sixth personal goal to his tally with a very classy finish in the 89th minute to put Goa up 9-0. Shanon Viegas gave the final blow to Gujarat in the dying minutes of the match with a goal in the 90th minute to make it a double digit 10-0 victory for Goa over Gujarat. Goa plays their final match of the West Zone qualifiers against a formidable Maharashtra squad on February 21.
